RT Journal Article SR Electronic(1) A1 Goytia, Elisa A1 Fernández-Calvino, Lourdes A1 Martínez-García, Belén A1 López-Abella, Dionisio A1 López-Moya, Juan JoséYR 2006 T1 Production of plum pox virus HC-Pro functionally active for aphid transmission in a transient-expression system JF Journal of General Virology, VO 87 IS 11 SP 3413 OP 3423 DO https://doi.org/10.1099/vir.0.82301-0 PB Microbiology Society, SN 1465-2099, AB Potyviruses are non-persistently transmitted by aphid vectors with the assistance of a viral accessory factor known as helper component (HC-Pro), a multifunctional protein that is also involved in many other essential processes during the virus infection cycle. A transient Agrobacterium-mediated expression system was used to produce Plum pox virus (PPV) HC-Pro in Nicotiana benthamiana leaves from constructs that incorporated the 5′ region of the genome, yielding high levels of HC-Pro in agroinfiltrated leaves. The expressed PPV HC-Pro was able to assist aphid transmission of purified virus particles in a sequential feeding assay, and to complement transmission-defective variants of the virus. Also, HC-Pro of a second potyvirus, Tobacco etch virus (TEV), was expressed and found to be functional for aphid transmission. These results show that this transient system can be useful for production of functionally active HC-Pro in potyviruses, and the possible uses of this approach to study the mechanism of transmission are discussed., UL https://www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/journal/jgv/10.1099/vir.0.82301-0