Tobacco mosaic virus

Tobacco mosaic virus is a rod-shaped plant virus with a single-stranded RNA genome. It spreads through infected plant material and causes mottled leaf patterns in tobacco and many other plants.

Tobacco mosaic virus coat protein: The protein subunits that assemble around tobacco mosaic virus RNA to form its rigid rod-shaped particle. Identical coat-protein subunits package the genome into the virus’s distinctive helical rod.
Adolf Mayer: A German agricultural chemist who studied tobacco mosaic disease in the late nineteenth century. His experiments showed that sap from diseased tobacco could transmit the disease.
Tobacco mosaic virus vector: A modified tobacco mosaic virus used to deliver genes or produce proteins in plants. Researchers adapt its replicating RNA and particle assembly for plant expression systems.
Tobacco mosaic virus structure: The helical arrangement of RNA and coat-protein subunits that forms tobacco mosaic virus particles. Its regular architecture enabled precise studies of how viral components assemble.
Positive-sense single-stranded RNA virus: A virus whose single-stranded RNA genome can serve directly as messenger RNA in an infected cell. Its genome can be translated by host ribosomes after entering a plant cell.
Dmitri Ivanovsky: A Russian botanist who found that infectious tobacco mosaic sap passed through bacteria-retaining filters. His filtration results revealed an infectious agent smaller than known bacteria.
Virus-induced gene silencing: A method that uses engineered plant viruses to trigger the degradation of matching host RNA and reduce gene expression. Modified tobacco mosaic virus can help test plant gene function through targeted silencing.
Tobacco mosaic virus reconstitution experiment: Experiments showing that purified tobacco mosaic virus RNA and coat protein can reassemble into infectious particles. Reconstitution demonstrated that genome and protein can self-assemble into functional virus.
Viral replication: The process by which a virus copies its genome and produces components for new virus particles inside host cells. Replication generates viral RNA and proteins that assemble into particles and spread through the plant.
Martinus Beijerinck: A Dutch microbiologist who described the tobacco mosaic pathogen as a new kind of infectious agent. He interpreted the filtered agent as a reproducing contagium rather than a bacterium.

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