Figure 10.  Cell-to-cell movement of Tobacco mosaic virus (TMV). In this model, the movement protein (MP) binds to the viral RNA [1]. Host proteins and/or other virus-encoded proteins may be included in the MP-complex [2]. The MP-complex then moves from cell-to-cell through the plasmodesmata [3]. When the complex is localized to a new cell, the MP (and any host proteins) are presumably released from the TMV RNA [4], allowing for translation of the genomic RNA to express the replicase proteins and to initiate a new round of replication [5], as shown in Figure 9. For citations related to the MP models and more detailed information on virus movement, please refer to Ding, 1998.  (Courtesy V. Brewster) BACK