Professor Wang Xiaowei's team from the College of Agriculture published a paper in PNAS to reveal the co-evolutionary mechanism of mutual adaptation of plant twin viruses and their mediator insects

Recently, Professor Wang Xiaowei's team at the College of Agriculture published a report entitled "A balance between vector survival and virus transmission is achieved through JAK/STAT" in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America signaling inhibition by a plant virus" research paper
.
The study revealed the molecular mechanisms
by which plant viruses and vector insects adapt to each other to maintain viral transmission and mediator survival.

Many viruses that cause serious harm to crop production rely on mediator insects for transmission
.
Since the transmission and spread of the virus by the mediator insect is closely related to the survival status of the mediator, there is clearly an adaptation relationship between the virus and the mediator to promote the spread of the virus while ensuring the survival
of the mediator.
At present, there has been no detailed study on how to establish a good mutual adaptation relationship between plant viruses and medial insects, and analyzing the molecular mechanism can help to deeply understand the co-evolutionary relationship
between viruses and medial insects.

Begomovirus, the genus Begomovirus, the plant DNA virus with the largest number of viruses, is specifically transmitted
in a persistent manner by the whitefly (Bemisia tabaci).
The research team took tomato yellow curiola virus (TYLCV) and its transmission mediator whitefly as the research object, and conducted an in-depth exploration
of the interaction between the virus and the mediator.
The study found that the JAK/STAT signaling pathway plays an important role
in mediating the mutual adaptation relationship between TYLCV and whiteflies.
By inhibiting the JAK/STAT pathway in whiteflies, the researchers found that the amount of viral DNA and shell protein in the whiteflies increased significantly, indicating that this pathway can inhibit the accumulation
of TYLCV in the body.
In addition, the downstream genes of STAT, BtCD109-2 and BtCD109-3, mediate the antiviral effects
of this pathway.
In response to the immune response of mediator insects, TYLCV has also evolved strategies to inhibit the AK/STAT pathway
in whiteflies.
TYLCV infestation was found to significantly inhibit the activity
of the JAK/STAT pathway in whiteflies.
Moreover, the coat protein of TYLCV inhibits its nucleation by binding to the STAT of the whitefly and thus inhibits the regulatory effect
of STAT on downstream genes.
What's more, the researchers found that inhibiting the JAK/STAT pathway reduced the survival and spawning volume of whiteflies while promoting TYLCV transmission (Figure 2
).
These findings suggest that JAK/STAT mediated interaction between TYLCV and whiteflies plays an important role
in maintaining a balanced relationship between whiteflies survival and virus transmission.

Fig.
2 Pattern diagram of TYLCV and whitefly adaptation moderated by the JAK/STAT pathway of whitefly

Yumeng Wang, a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute of Entomological Sciences of Zhejiang University, is the first author of the paper, and Professor Wang Xiaowei is the corresponding author
.
Professor Yaya He of Nanjing Agricultural University, Xintong Ye, graduate of Zhejiang University, Tao Guo, assistant researcher Lilong Pan, Professor Shusheng Liu, and Professor James Ng of the University of California, Riverside, participated in the study
.
The research was funded
by the National Key Research and Development Program, the National Natural Science Foundation of China and major scientific and technological projects in Hainan Province.

Original link: www.
pnas.
org/doi/10.
1073/pnas.
2122099119