 |
 |
Valerian Dolja
Professor, Botany and Plant Pathology
|
 |
||||||||||||||
RESEARCH:
My general interest is the molecular biology and evolution of positive-strand RNA viruses of plants. We utilize beet yellows closterovirus (BYV) and tobacco etch potyvirus (TEV) as two evolutionary dissimilar model systems. In order to facilitate our studies, molecular clones of viral genomes were generated and tagged by insertion of the bacterial gene coding for b-glucuronidase or jellyfish gene encoding green fluorescent protein. Expression of these reporters allowed the visualization of virus replication and transport inside the infected plants and provided excellent tools with which to study molecular mechanisms underlying virus interactions with the cells.
It was discovered that the unusually large genome of BYV encodes a homolog of heat shock proteins from HSP70 family. Diverse bacterial, animal, and human viruses recruit these "molecular chaperones" of the cell at different stages of the life cycle, but only closteroviruses possess their own HSP70 gene. In the cell, HSP70s function in protein folding, assembly of protein complexes, protein trafficking between different cell compartments, etc. The elucidation of virus-specific functions of BYV HSP70 will uncover the novel activities of its cellular kin adopted by the virus. Our finding that BYV HSP70 binds filamentous virus particles and microtubules implicates this protein into cytoskeleton-associated translocation of virus. In addition, we are involved in the development of virus-derived gene expression vectors. These vectors are increasingly used for cutting-edge research in functional plant genomics and for commercial production of pharmaceuticals such as vaccines and antibodies in plants.