Cooperation in viral movement: The geminivirus BL1 movement protein interacts with BR1 and redirects it from the nucleus to the cell periphery

Abstract

For plant viruses to systemically infect a host requires the active participation of viral-encoded movement proteins. It has been suggested that BL1 and BR1, the two movement proteins encoded by the bipartite geminivirus squash leaf curl virus (SqLCV), act cooperatively to facilitate movement of the viral single-stranded DNA genome from its site of replication in the nucleus to the cell periphery and across the cell wall to adjacent uninfected cells. To better understand the mechanism of SqLCV movement, we investigated the ability of BL1 and BR1 to interact specifically with each other using transient expression assays in insect cells and Nicotiana tabacum cv Xanthi protoplasts. In this study, we showed that when individually expressed, BL1 is localized to the periphery and BR1 to nuclei in both cell systems. However, when coexpressed in either cell type, BL1 relocalized BR1 from the nucleus to the cell periphery. This interaction was found to be specific for BL1 and BR1, because BL1 did not relocalize the SqLCV nuclear-localized AL2 or coat protein. In addition, mutations in BL1 known to affect viral infectivity and pathogenicity were found to be defective in either their subcellular localization or their ability to relocalize BR1, and, thus, identified regions of BL1 required for correct subcellular targeting or interaction with BR1. These findings extend our model for SqLCV movement, demonstrating that BL1 and BR1 appear to interact directly with each other to facilitate movement cooperatively and that BL1 is responsible for providing directionality to movement of the viral genome.