Characterization of Pathogenicity-Associated V2 Protein of Tobacco Curly Shoot Virus

V2 proteins encoded by some whitefly-transmitted geminiviruses were reported to be functionally important proteins. However, the functions of the V2 protein of tobacco curly shoot virus (TbCSV), a monopartite begomovirus that causes leaf curl disease on tomato and tobacco in China, remains to be characterized. In our report, an Agrobacterium infiltration-mediated transient expression assay indicated that TbCSV V2 can suppress local and systemic RNA silencing and the deletion analyses demonstrated that the amino acid region 1–92 of V2, including the five predicted α-helices, are required for local RNA silencing suppression. Site-directed substitutions showed that the conserved basic and ring-structured amino acids in TbCSV V2 are critical for its suppressor activity. Potato virus X-mediated heteroexpression of TbCSV V2 in Nicotiana benthamiana induced hypersensitive response-like (HR-like) cell death and systemic necrosis in a manner independent of V2′s suppressor activity. Furthermore, TbCSV infectious clone mutant with untranslated V2 protein (TbCSV(∆V2)) could not induce visual symptoms, and coinfection with betasatellite (TbCSB) could obviously elevate the viral accumulation and symptom development. Interestingly, symptom recovery occurred at 15 days postinoculation (dpi) and onward in TbCSV(∆V2)/TbCSB-inoculated plants. The presented work contributes to understanding the RNA silencing suppression activity of TbCSV V2 and extends our knowledge of the multifunctional role of begomovirus-encoded V2 proteins during viral infections.