Potyviruses (Viruses in the genus Potyvirus, family Potyviridae) constitute the largest group of known plant-infecting RNA viruses and include many agriculturally important viruses that cause devastating epidemics and significant yield losses in many crops worldwide. Because of their importance as pathogens, more research has focused on potyviruses than on other plant viruses. In the past decade, a large amount of knowledge has been generated to better understand potyviruses and their infection process. Recently, a review article entitled “research advances in potyviruses: from the laboratory bench to the field” has been published in Annual Review of Phytopathology by Professor Yang Xiuling from the Institute of Plant Protection, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, together with Professor Wang Aiming’s research group from London Research and Development Center, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. In this review, the authors highlighted recent important discoveries on potyviruses, covering many aspects of plant virology.

Many potyviruses are important in agriculture, and several of them have been in the top ten plant viruses that rank the most economic and the most scientific. Although potyviral RNA contains a single open reading frame, potyviruses employ both polyprotein processing and transcription slippage-derived frameshift to express fewer than a dozen multifunctional proteins that interact with viral and cellular factors to fulfill viral infection cycle. To defend potyvirus infection, plants mount a sophisticated resistome consisting of multiple layers of antiviral defense, such as RNA target immunity, effector-triggered immunity, pathogen-associated molecular pattern-triggered immunity, R gene-encoded proteins, sumoylation, and autophagy to restrict virus infection. Potyviruses, in turn, have evolved an array of smart counterstrategies to antagonize the antiviral arsenal of plants.

In this paper, the authors listed and presented an overview of top ten economically important potyviruses, which were selected based on current knowledge and discussions with colleagues in plant virology. They highlighted recent  findings on the novel genome expression strategy and the biological functions of potyviral proteins. They further depicted recent advances in molecular plant-potyvirus interactions, particularly regarding the coevolutionary arms race. Finally, they summarized current disease control strategies, with a focus on TILLING and CRISPR-Cas system-based approaches to generate recessive resistance in crops, and pointed out future research directions.

More details can be found at the link below:

https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-phyto-020620-114550

By Yang Xiuling (yangxiuling@caas.cn)