Geminiviruses across crops

01/01/2024 to 31/12/2024

Geminiviruses are an important pathogen with a great impact in the agronomic industry, able to affect a big variety of different crops. Nowadays, along with finding new resistance genes, an important part inside breeding research relies in the study of susceptible genes. For this is important the identification of leads genes and their functional validation thereof. Whereas the genes available in the public domain do not give us any competitive advantage, the joint activities with Tubingen University could lead to the identification of such S genes with transmission across our crops of interests.
Rosa Lozano Duran´s group is specialized in the study of interaction between viral and host proteins and has already obtained, characterized, and validated several genes in the last years using different screening methods. During her extensive career as principal investigator, Rosa has demonstrated a high expertise in plant-virus interaction and molecular plant pathology, with a strong focus on geminiviruses. Entering in a collaboration with this group will allow us to study the plant geminivirus interaction in a more complete way. For this reason, we aim to perform a VIGS screening in Nicotiana benthamiana plants infected with Tomato yellow leaf curl virus, using different interactors previously obtained in the laboratory of Rosa.