Amino acids in Tobamovirus coat protein controlling pepper L(1a) gene-mediated resistance

Abstract

In pepper plants (genus Capsicum), the resistance against Tobamovirus spp. is conferred by L gene alleles. The recently identified L variant L(1a) can recognize coat proteins (CPs) of Tobacco mild green mosaic virus Japanese strain (TMGMV-J) and Paprika mild mottle virus Japanese strain (PaMMV-J), but not of Pepper mild mottle virus (PMMoV), as the elicitor to induce resistance at 24 °C. Interestingly, L(1a) gene-mediated resistance against TMGMV-J, but not PaMMV-J, is retained at 30 °C. This observation led us to speculate that L(1a) can discriminate between CPs of TMGMV-J and PaMMV-J. In this study, we aimed to determine the region(s) in CP by which L(1a) distinguishes TMGMV-J from PaMMV-J. By using chimeric CPs consisting of TMGMV-J and PaMMV-J, we found that the chimeric TMGMV-J CP, whose residues in the β-sheet domain were replaced by those of PaMMV-J, lost its ability to induce L(1a) gene-mediated resistance at 30 °C. In contrast, the chimeric PaMMV-J CP with the β-sheet domain replaced by TMGMV-J CP was able to induce L(1a) gene-mediated resistance at 30 °C. Furthermore, viral particles were not detected in the leaves inoculated with either chimeric virus. These observations indicated that the amino acids within the β-sheet domain were involved in both the induction of L(1a) gene-mediated resistance and virion formation. Further analyses using chimeric CPs of TMGMV-J and PMMoV indicated that amino acids within the β-sheet domain alone were not sufficient for the induction of L(1a) gene-mediated resistance by TMGMV-J CP. These results suggest that multiple regions in Tobamovirus CP are implicated in the induction of L(1a) gene-mediated resistance.