P-597 - Transcriptomic response of the synergistic mixed viral infection of citrus vein enation virus and citrus yellow vein associated virus in Mexican lime

Monday, August 4, 2025

4:30 PM - 5:15 PM HST

Location: Exhibit Hall 3

Presenting Author(s)

SC

Stacey Comstock

Graduate Student Researcher
University of California, Riverside
Riverside, California, United States

Author(s)

AM

Arunabha Mitra, PhD (he/him/his)

Postdoctoral Scholar
University of California, Riverside
Riverside, California, United States
SB

Sohrab Bodaghi

University of California, Riverside
Riverside, California, United States
AW

Albert Guohong Wu

US Department of Energy, Joint Genome Institute
Walnut Creek, California, United States
JB

Jessen Bredeson

University of California, Berkeley
Berkeley, California, United States
FG

Frederick Gmitter

Citrus Research and Education Center (CREC), Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (IFAS), University of Florida
Lake Alfred, Florida, United States
DR

Daniel Rokhsar

University of California, Berkeley
Berkeley, California, United States
GV

Georgios Vidalakis

University of California, Riverside
Riverside, California, United States

Abstract Text: Mixed infection of citrus vein enation virus (CVEV) and citrus yellow vein associated virus (CYVaV) result in a synergistic enhancement of CYVaV symptoms and increased viral titers of both viruses. Although CVEV viral titer increases during mixed infections, replication efficiency of its coat protein, a viral suppressor of RNA silencing (VSR), decreases compared to single infections, suggesting virus-virus or virus-host interactions occurring in mixed infections. RNA-seq was used to investigate the potential virus-host interactions between CVEV, CYVaV, and their native citrus host. Symptomatic leaf tissues from single and mixed graft-inoculated Mexican lime were used for transcriptome analysis. Single infections of CVEV induces a strong suppressive effect on host systems while single infections of CYVaV depend more on host system remodeling for its infection strategy. Mixed infection provoked a robust, synergistic host response, generating 1,205 unique upregulated and 274 downregulated differentially expressed genes (DEGs) not present in the single infections. However, in non-unique up- and downregulated DEGs of the mixed infection, CVEV contributes more features of its suppression strategy compared to CYVaV, indicating the decreased replication efficiency of CVEV’s VSR during mixed infection is not attributed to interactions with the citrus host. These findings emphasize the complexity of viral interactions and underscore the importance of studying virus-virus and virus-host interactions to understand both pathogen and host dynamics in mixed infections.