PLANT VIRUS BIOTECH

Viruses offer a myriad of opportunities to be targets or tools of plant biotechnology. On one hand viruses are intracellular pathogens impossible to combat chemically, hence fighting against them requires different approaches frequently involving biotechnological components. A clear example is the exploitation of molecular-based technologies for virus detection, diagnosis, and/or typing. Deployment of natural or transgenic resistances to viruses also demands a wide range of molecular technologies, useful for structural genomic characterizations of plant varieties in this regard, too. On the other hand plant viruses are organisms developed to interact with plant components. These interactions often lead to host physiological or developmental alterations, yet they have the built-in advantage of being a useful lead to understanding and potentially modifying both the interaction itself (infection symptoms), and plant physiology or development with different purposes. Finally viruses can be efficient vehicles for heterologous gene expression in plants exploited as biofactories, and its encapsidated forms (virions) are but highly complex and stable nanostructures, the basis for development of multiple nanobiotechnological applications.

 

Our group tries to exploit this formidable multilevel virus potential for its biotechnological development.