Replication of tobacco mosaic virus RNA

Abstract

The replication of tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) RNA involves synthesis of a negative–strand RNA using the genomic positive–strand RNA as a template, followed by the synthesis of positive–strand RNA on the negative–strand RNA templates. Intermediates of replication isolated from infected cells include completely double–stranded RNA (replicative form) and partly double–stranded and partly single–stranded RNA (replicative intermediate), but it is not known whether these structures are double–stranded or largely single–stranded in vivo . The synthesis of negative strands ceases before that of positive strands, and positive and negative strands may be synthesized by two different polymerases. The genomic–length negative strand also serves as a template for the synthesis of subgenomic mRNAs for the virus movement and coat proteins. Both the virus–encoded 126–kDa protein, which has amino–acid sequence motifs typical of methyltransferases and helicases, and the 183–kDa protein, which has additional motifs characteristic of RNA–dependent RNA polymerases, are required for efficient TMV RNA replication. Purified TMV RNA polymerase also contains a host protein serologically related to the RNA–binding subunit of the yeast translational initiation factor, eIF3. Study of Arabidopsis mutants defective in RNA replication indicates that at least two host proteins are needed for TMV RNA replication. The tomato resistance gene Tm–1 may also encode a mutant form of a host protein component of the TMV replicase. TMV replicase complexes are located on the endoplasmic reticulum in close association with the cytoskeleton in cytoplasmic bodies called viroplasms, which mature to produce ‘X bodies’. Viroplasms are sites of both RNA replication and protein synthesis, and may provide compartments in which the various stages of the virus mutiplication cycle (protein synthesis, RNA replication, virus movement, encapsidation) are localized and coordinated. Membranes may also be important for the configuration of the replicase with respect to initiation of RNA synthesis, and synthesis and release of progeny single–stranded RNA.