Influence of high hydrostatic pressure on epitope mapping of tobacco mosaic virus coat protein.

In this study, we investigated the effect of high hydrostatic pressure (HHP) on tobacco mosaic virus (TMV), a model virus in immunology and one of the most studied viruses to date. Exposure to HHP significantly altered the recognition epitopes when compared to sera from mice immunized with native virus. These alterations were studied further by combining HHP with urea or low temperature and then inoculating the altered virions into Balb-C mice. The antibody titers and cross-reactivity of the resulting sera were determined by ELISA. The antigenicity of the viral particles was maintained, as assessed by using polyclonal antibodies against native virus. The antigenicity of canonical epitopes was maintained, although binding intensities varied among the treatments. The patterns of recognition determined by epitope mapping were cross checked with the prediction algorithms for the TMVcp amino acid sequence to infer which alterations had occurred. These findings suggest that different cleavage sites were exposed after the treatments and this was confirmed by epitope mapping using sera from mice immunized with virus previously exposed to HHP.

Tobamovirus coat protein CPCg induces an HR-like response in sensitive tobacco plants.

When inoculated into sensitive tobacco Xanthi-nn plants, the crucifer and garlic-infecting Tobacco mosaic virus (TMV-Cg) induces local necrotic lesions that resemble those seen in the hypersensitive response (HR) of resistant tobacco plants. However, unlike these, tobacco Xanthi-nn plants do not become resistant to infection and the virus spreads systemically causing a severe disease characterized by necrotic lesions throughout the plant. To identify the viral protein that elicits this necrotic response, we used a set of hybrid viruses constructed by combination of TMV-Cg and the tobacco mosaic virus strain U1 (TMV-U1). In this study we present evidence that the coat protein of TMV-Cg (CPCg) is the elicitor of the necrotic response in tobacco Xanthi-nn plants. Local and systemic necrotic lesions induced by TMV-Cg and by the hybrid U1-CPCg -that carries CPCg in a TMV-U1 context- are characterized by cell death and by the presence of autoflorescent phenolic compounds and H2O2, just like the HR lesions. In addition, defense-related genes and detoxifying genes are induced in tobacco Xanthi-nn plants after TMV-Cg and U1-CPCg inoculation. We postulate that in our system, CPCg is recognized by sensitive tobacco plants that mount an incomplete defense response. We call this an HR-like since it is not enough to induce plant resistance.