Legacy of Plant Virology in Croatia-From Virus Identification to Molecular Epidemiology, Evolution, Genomics and Beyond.

This paper showcases the development of plant virology in Croatia at the University of Zagreb, Faculty of Science, from its beginning in the 1950s until today, more than 70 years later. The main achievements of the previous and current group members are highlighted according to various research topics and fields. Expectedly, some of those accomplishments remained within the field of plant virology, but others make part of a much-extended research spectrum exploring subviral pathogens, prokaryotic plant pathogens, fungi and their viruses, as well as their interactions within ecosystems. Thus, the legacy of plant virology in Croatia continues to contribute to the state of the art of microbiology far beyond virology. Research problems pertinent for directing the future research endeavors are also proposed in this review.

[17th plant virology meeting report]. / Compte rendu des 17es Rencontres de virologie végétale.

RVV Plant virology meeting (January 27-31, 2019, Aussois, France) allows researchers, engineers, technicians, students and post-docs to exchange around oral and poster presentations. These convivial meetings are 30 years old and have a nice future.

TMV Particles: The Journey From Fundamental Studies to Bionanotechnology Applications.

Ever since its initial characterization in the 19th century, tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) has played a prominent role in the development of modern virology and molecular biology. In particular, research on the three-dimensional structure of the virus particles and the mechanism by which these assemble from their constituent protein and RNA components has made TMV a paradigm for our current view of the morphogenesis of self-assembling structures, including viral particles. More recently, this knowledge has been applied to the development of novel reagents and structures for applications in biomedicine and bionanotechnology. In this article, we review how fundamental science has led to TMV being at the vanguard of these new technologies.

Development of Model Systems for Plant Rhabdovirus Research.

This chapter reviews the discoveries and initial characterizations (1930-1990) of three plant rhabdoviruses, sonchus yellow net virus, potato yellow dwarf virus, and lettuce necrotic yellows virus, that have become model systems for research on this group of enveloped negative-strand RNA plant viruses. We have used our personal perspectives to review the early historical studies of these viruses, the important technologies and tools, such as density gradient centrifugation, that were developed during the research, and to highlight the eminent scientists involved in these discoveries. Early studies on sites of virus replication, virion structure, physicochemical composition, and the use of protoplasts and vector insect cell culture for virus research are discussed, and differences between the nuclear and cytoplasmic lifestyles of plant rhabdoviruses are contrasted. Finally, we briefly summarize the genome organization and more recent developments culminating in the development of a reverse genetics system for plant negative-strand RNA viruses.

Finding our roots and celebrating our shoots: Plant virology in Virology, 1955-1964.

To celebrate the sixtieth anniversary of Virology a survey is made of the plant viruses, virologists and their institutions, and tools and technology described in the first decade of plant virus publications in Virology. This was a period when plant viruses increasingly became tools of discovery as epistemic objects and plant virology became a discipline discrete from plant pathology and other life sciences.

The wayward Hawaiian boy returns home.

This chapter represents a travelog of my life and career and the philosophical points I acquired along the way. I was born on a sugar plantation on the island of Hawaii and early on had a stuttering problem. I attended the Kamehameha Schools and received my BS and MS degrees from the University of Hawaii and my Ph.D. from the University of California at Davis. I link my life and career to various principles and events, some of which are: the importance of positioning oneself; going for the big enchilada; music, the international language; the red zone of biotechnology; the human side of biotechnology; the transgenic papaya story; and my leadership time at USDA in Hawaii. The guiding light throughout my career were the words from Drs. Eduardo Trujillo and Robert Shepherd, respectively, "Dennis, don't just be a test tube scientist, do something to help people" and "Now tell me, what have you really accomplished?"

Phytopathogenic bacteria in the system of modern agriculture.

The stages of studying bacterial diseases of crops and weeds at various farming systems have been characterized, biological properties have been investigated and pathogens identified using traditional and modern molecular genetic methods of research.

Historical perspective, development and applications of next-generation sequencing in plant virology.

Next-generation high throughput sequencing technologies became available at the onset of the 21st century. They provide a highly efficient, rapid, and low cost DNA sequencing platform beyond the reach of the standard and traditional DNA sequencing technologies developed in the late 1970s. They are continually improved to become faster, more efficient and cheaper. They have been used in many fields of biology since 2004. In 2009, next-generation sequencing (NGS) technologies began to be applied to several areas of plant virology including virus/viroid genome sequencing, discovery and detection, ecology and epidemiology, replication and transcription. Identification and characterization of known and unknown viruses and/or viroids in infected plants are currently among the most successful applications of these technologies. It is expected that NGS will play very significant roles in many research and non-research areas of plant virology.

Arthur Kelman: tribute and remembrance.

With the death of Professor Arthur Kelman at age 90, the plant sciences, and particularly the field of plant pathology, lost one of its most influential and effective leaders. His long career involved important positions in the Departments of Plant Pathology at North Carolina State University (1949-1965) and the University of Wisconsin (1965-1989). Recognized not only for his achievements in research and his charismatic influence on his numerous students, Arthur was, most of all, an extraordinary teacher. He and his students made significant contributions in the fields of virulence, ecology, and control of bacterial plant pathogens. In addition, he was extremely active in service to professional societies, including the American Phytopathological Society, and a major force in the development of the International Society for Plant Pathology. In addition, he was an influential member of the Council of the National Academy of Sciences, and, after retirement from the University of Wisconsin, he served for two years as Chief Scientist of the Competitive Grants Program of the US Department of Agriculture. He received numerous awards as a teacher and researcher, and felt an intense sense of duty to his profession. He was one of the most influential plant pathologists of the twentieth century and will be remembered for his great intellect and his humanity.

An ideal job.

A brief personal history illustrates how fortunate I was to have stumbled into a career in plant pathology, which turned out to be the ideal job for me. Several of the people who steered me or facilitated my development in research on plant diseases are mentioned. Starting with my PhD research, I have had the good fortune to indulge a career-long fascination with epidemiology and genetics of disease resistance in plants, particularly coevolution of gene-for-gene host-pathogen systems. I hope that my example may inspire others of like minds to consider a research career in plant pathology.

Chris Lamb: a visionary leader in plant science.

Christopher John Lamb (1950-2009) made major contributions to the field of plant defense gene activation, particularly through his studies on signal transduction mechanisms. Between 1994 and 2004, he published a series of seminal papers that outlined the involvement of hydrogen peroxide, nitric oxide, lipid transfer proteins, and aspartic proteases as critical components of local and/or systemic resistance during plant-microbe interactions. Prior to this, he had been one of the first to establish the fact that induced defense responses resulted from transcriptional activation of sets of coordinately regulated genes. Chris obtained his B.S and PhD degrees in biochemistry from the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom, moving to the Botany School at the University of Oxford as a postdoctoral fellow in 1975 and to the Biochemistry Department in Oxford as a Departmental Demonstrator in 1978. He was appointed founding director of the Plant Biology Laboratory at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California in 1982, and occupied the last ten years of his life as Director of the John Innes Center, Norwich, United Kingdom. In spite of spending most of his career as a director at two of the world's most prestigious institutes, formal recognition of his achievements came late in life, with election to the Royal Society of London in 2008 and endowment of the honor of Commander of the British Empire (CBE) for his contributions to British plant science by Queen Elizabeth II in 2009. Sadly, Chris did not live to attend the official ceremony at which he would receive his CBE.

Not as they seem.

I recount the early influences that directed me toward a career in research and then describe some efforts investigating Cowpea mosaic virus and the satellite RNA of Tobacco ringspot virus. These descriptions have a common theme of surprise, how things often can be not as they are expected to be. Finally, I examine the widely held belief that a plant transgene derived from a distant taxonomic source presents a greater risk than a transgene derived from a closely related plant and contend that this also is a situation in which things may not be as they initially seem.