Virus Genome-Based Reporter for Analyzing Viral Movement Proteins and Plasmodesmata Permeability

Abstract

Plant virus movement proteins (MPs) mediate cell-to-cell movement of the virus genome through plasmodesmata (PD). MPs target PD to increase their size exclusion limit (SEL), and this MP function is essential for virus intercellular trafficking. In this chapter, we describe the use of a Potato virus X genome-derived reporter for agroinfiltration-based identification of virus genome-encoded MPs and analysis of the ability of individual viral MPs or plant proteins to increase the PD SEL.

Keywords: Cell-to-cell movement; Movement protein; Plant virus; Plasmodesmata; Size exclusion limit.