RNA silencing or Post-transcriptional gene silencing (PTGS) in plants is a fundamental defence mechanism against viruses, transgenes and transposons. Most viruses, if not all, are able to overcome RNA-silencing through the production of so-called "silencing suppressors" with counterdefence ability". This strategy is well known for plant and animal viruses. Silencing suppressor proteins block the host RNA silencing by targeting different steps of the silencing pathway. In this review, we will focus on the major silencing suppressor proteins encoded by plant viruses and on the methods used to identify and characterize the molecular bases of silencing suppression.
Keywords: PTGS; molecular basis of suppression; plant viruses; silencing suppressor.