Delivery of Maize mosaic rhabdovirus to planthopper vectors by microinjection increases infection efficiency and facilitates functional genomics experiments in the vector.

Delivery of Maize mosaic rhabdovirus to planthopper vectors by microinjection increases infection efficiency and facilitates functional genomics experiments in the vector.
J Virol Methods. 2019 May 24;:
Authors: Yao J, Rotenberg D, Whitfield AE
Abstract
The corn planthopper, Peregrinus maidis, not only causes direct damage to plants by feeding, but also transmits maize mosaic virus (MMV) to the plant hosts. The virus is transmitted in a propagative manner but the acquisition of MMV by the vector feeding on infected plants can result in low acquisition and inoculation efficiency. Here, we increased the acquisition efficiency by delivering the virus directly into the hemocoel through microinjection, which resulted in efficient virus infection of the insect and transmission to maize. We found that delivery of virus by injection of 10 ng MMV (50 nl, 200 µg/ml virions) into P. maidis resulted in 93% transmission efficiency. In dose-response experiments, MMV abundance in insects and transmission efficiency decreased as the amount of virus inoculum delivered into the hemocoel was reduced. Examination of virus distribution in the vector using immunolabeling and confocal microscopy revealed similar tissue distributions in the injected insects when compared to those of previous studies using feeding on plants for virus acquisition. The utility of virus inoculation by microinjection for functional analysis in virus-vector interaction was...

Source: Journal of Virological Methods - May 23, 2019 Category: Virology Authors: Yao J, Rotenberg D, Whitfield AE Tags: J Virol Methods Source Type: research