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POSTERS: Proteomics / metabolomics / genomics

Full-length infectious clones of Banana bunchy top virus
Zhongguo Xiong - University of Arizona. Naitong Yu- Chinese Academy of Tropical Agricultural Sciences, Zhixin Liu- Chinese Academy of Tropical Agricultural Sciences, Jian-hua Wang- Chinese Academy of Tropical Agricultural Sciences, Xiaolong Ji- Chinese Academy of Tropical Agricultural Sciences,

Banana bunchy top virus (BBTV) is an important pathogen responsible for a serious disease of banana worldwide. In this study, longer than unit-length DNA of the eight components of the BBTV genome was amplified and cloned into the plant expression vector pCAMBIA3300. The eight recombinant plasmids were subsequently transferred into Agrobacterium tumefaciens GV1301 individually, and co-inoculated into banana leaves by agroinfiltration. At 90 days post inoculation (dpi), typical BBTV symptoms were visible on inoculated banana plants, and individual components of the BBTV genome were readily detectable in systemic leaves. However, the infection rate was relatively low. One possible reason is the high frequency of homologous recombination between repeated sequences in the longer than unit-length clones, resulting in either concatmers or deletions of BBTV sequences while being propagated in bacterial hosts. The simultaneous delivery of eight different BBTV components to the same cell also posed a great challenge in agroinfiltration. Despite the low infection rate, this is a first report of successful BBTV infectious clones. Further improvement and the use of a rec- bacterium host for cloning should substantially improve the infection rate of the BBTV infectious clones. The availability of the BBTV infectious clones is expected to accelerate studies on the functional genomics of BBTV and molecular interactions between BBTV and the banana host.