Engineering of soybean mosaic virus as a versatile tool for studying protein–protein interactions in soybean

Transient gene expression approaches are valuable tools for rapid introduction of genes of interest and characterization of their functions in plants. Although agroinfiltration is the most effectively and routinely used method for transient expression of multiple genes in various plant species, this approach has been largely unsuccessful in soybean. In this study, we engineered soybean mosaic virus (SMV) as a dual-gene delivery vector to simultaneously deliver and express two genes in soybean cells. We further show the application of the SMV-based dual vector for a bimolecular fluorescence complementation assay to visualize in vivo protein–protein interactions in soybean and for a co-immunoprecipitation assay to identify cellular proteins interacting with SMV helper component protease. This approach provides a rapid and cost-effective tool for transient introduction of multiple traits into soybean and for in vivo characterization of the soybean cellular protein interaction network.