Periodic Reporting for period 1 - GemOmics (Emerging multifactorial complexity at the geminivirus-host interface)
Reporting period: 2022-07-01 to 2024-12-31
Viruses manipulate their host cells to replicate and spread, ultimately causing devastating diseases in the organisms they infect. This manipulation is based on the activity of virus-encoded proteins, limited due to restrictions in genome size imposed by the viral cycle. How the action of these few proteins results in the massive cell reprogramming observed during the infection remains enigmatic. This project tackles this question by using geminiviruses, plant viruses infecting crops worldwide, as models. We aim to define the complete set of proteins these viruses produce, and investigate how they interact, physically and functionally, with the cellular proteins and with one another, generating a comprehensive map of the virus/host intersection with unprecedented resolution. Then, we plant to test if these maps are similar in different virus/host interactions.
Our results so far indicate that viruses produce more proteins with roles in the infection than previously thought, and that some of these proteins physically interact with themselves and/or one another, which could expand their functional capabilities.
The conceptual and practical enlargement of the virus/host interface elucidated in this project suggests that we are currently just scratching at the surface of virus-host interactions.