About the Cover
The potato virus X (PVX) coat protein (CP), which is essential for cell-to-cell movement of the virus in plants, is found associated with plasmodesmata. On pages 495 of this issue, Santa Cruz et al. demonstrate that, although the CP lacks an intrinsic ability to traffic between cells, movement of CP during the PVX infection process occurs via plasmodesmata and through the phloem. The cover depicts a cross section of a systemically infected leaf. Uninfected cells are shown in pale blue, infected cells containing only a nonstructural viral protein in green, and infected cells containing both the CP and the nonstructural protein in red. The section was prepared from the scion tissue of a grafted Nicotiana benthamiana plant in which the rootstock was transgenic for the PVX CP and the scion was nontransgenic. Cell-to-cell movement of an assembly-defective mutant CP in the scion tissue was partially rescued by wild-type CP that was transported through the phloem.
[Table of Contents]
Copyright © 2007 by the American Society of Plant Biologists
