Viroids
- 1 November 2008
- journal article
- review article
- Published by Hindawi Limited in Cellular Microbiology
- Vol. 10 (11), 2168-2179
- https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1462-5822.2008.01231.x
Abstract
Viroids are small, circular RNA pathogens, which infect several crop plants and can cause diseases of economic importance. They do not code for proteins but they contain a number of RNA structural elements, which interact with factors of the host. The resulting set of sophisticated and specific interactions enables them to use the host machinery for their replication and transport, circumvent its defence reactions and alter its gene expression. Although found in plants, viroids have a distant relative in the animal world: hepatitis delta virus (HDV), a satellite virus of hepatitis B virus, which has a similar rod-like structure and replicates in the nucleus of infected cells. Viroids have also a cellular relative: the retroviroids, found in some plants as independent (non-infectious) RNA replicons with a DNA copy. In this review, we summarize recent progress in understanding viroid biology. We discuss the possible role of recently identified viroid-binding host proteins as well as the recent data on the interaction of viroids with one part of the host's defence machinery, the RNA-mediated gene silencing and how this might be connected to viroid replication and pathogenicity.Keywords
This publication has 79 references indexed in Scilit:
- The peach latent mosaic viroid replication initiation site is located at a universal position that appears to be defined by a conserved sequenceVirology, 2008
- A Genomic Map of Viroid RNA Motifs Critical for Replication and Systemic TraffickingPlant Cell, 2008
- Virp1 Is a Host Protein with a Major Role in Potato Spindle Tuber Viroid Infection in Nicotiana PlantsJournal of Virology, 2007
- A Viroid RNA with a Specific Structural Motif Inhibits Chloroplast DevelopmentPlant Cell, 2007
- Tertiary structure and function of an RNA motif required for plant vascular entry to initiate systemic traffickingThe EMBO Journal, 2007
- Genome-wide transcription and the implications for genomic organizationNature Reviews Genetics, 2007
- A Structured Viroid RNA Serves as a Substrate for Dicer-Like Cleavage To Produce Biologically Active Small RNAs but Is Resistant to RNA-Induced Silencing Complex-Mediated DegradationJournal of Virology, 2007
- High-Throughput Sequencing of Arabidopsis microRNAs: Evidence for Frequent Birth and Death of MIRNA GenesPLOS ONE, 2007
- RNA silencing in plantsNature, 2004
- Potato spindle tuber viroid as Inducer of RNA Silencing in Infected TomatoMolecular Plant-Microbe Interactions®, 2001