Reversion of a resistance‐breaking mutation shows reversion costs and high virus diversity at necrotic local lesions

An instance of host range evolution relevant to plant virus disease control is resistance breaking. Resistance breaking can be hindered by across‐host fitness trade‐offs generated by negative effects of resistance‐breaking mutations on the virus fitness in susceptible hosts. Different mutations in pepper mild mottle virus (PMMoV) coat protein result in the breaking in pepper plants of the resistance determined by the L (3) resistance allele. Of these, mutation M138N is widespread in PMMoV populations, despite associated fitness penalties in within‐host multiplication and survival. The stability of mutation M138N was analysed by serial passaging in L (3) resistant plants. Appearance on passaging of necrotic local lesions (NLL), indicating an effective L (3) resistance, showed reversion to nonresistance‐breaking phenotypes was common. Most revertant genotypes had the mutation N138K, which affects the properties of the virus particle, introducing a penalty of reversion. Hence, the costs of reversion may determine the evolution of resistance‐breaking in addition to resistance‐breaking costs. The genetic diversity of the virus population in NLL was much higher than in systemically infected tissues, and included mutations reported to break L (3) resistance other than M138N. Infectivity assays on pepper genotypes with different L alleles showed high phenotypic diversity in respect to L alleles in NLL, including phenotypes not reported in nature. Thus, high diversity at NLL may potentiate the appearance of genotypes that enable the colonization of new host genotypes or species. Collectively, the results of this study contribute to better understanding the evolutionary dynamics of resistance breaking and host‐range expansions.