Differential roles of C4 and βC1 in mediating suppression of post-transcriptional gene silencing: Evidence for transactivation by the C2 of Bhendi yellow vein mosaic virus, a monopartite begomovirus

Bhendi yellow vein mosaic disease (BYVMD) is caused by the association of a DNA β satellite with a begomovirus component. The begomovirus component has two promoters, one in the virion sense (V-sense) and the other in the complementary sense (C-sense) in the intergenic region (IR). To study the promoter activities of V-sense and C-sense promoters, mGFP gene fusion was made downstream to the promoters. Transient and stable expressions in N. benthamiana leaves showed significant GFP expression under C-sense promoter whereas the expression under the V-sense promoter was very weak in the absence of the transactivator C2. Untransformed N. benthamiana plants were agroinfiltrated with binary vector constructs containing V-sense-GFP alone or along with C1, C2, C4, V1, V2 or βC1 (in both sense and antisense orientations) to understand the roles of these gene products in transactivation and/or suppression of post-transcriptional gene silencing (PTGS). The results showed strong suppression of gene silencing activities for C4 and βC1 but a weak activity for C2. The suppression activities were also confirmed using gfp-silenced GFP16c/GFPi plants by agroinfiltration and agroinoculation. The expression of C4 and βC1 as transgenes produced abnormal phenotypic growth compared to the other viral genes mentioned above, further supporting their suppressor function.