Potato virus Y HC-Pro Reduces the ATPase Activity of NtMinD, Which Results in Enlarged Chloroplasts in HC-Pro Transgenic Tobacco

PLoS One. 2015 Aug 26;10(8):e0136210. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0136210. eCollection 2015.

Abstract

Potato virus Y (PVY) is an important plant virus and causes great losses every year. Viral infection often leads to abnormal chloroplasts. The first step of chloroplast division is the formation of FtsZ ring (Z-ring), and the placement of Z-ring is coordinated by the Min system in both bacteria and plants. In our lab, the helper-component proteinase (HC-Pro) of PVY was previously found to interact with the chloroplast division protein NtMinD through a yeast two-hybrid screening assay and a bimolecular fluorescence complementation (BiFC) assay in vivo. Here, we further investigated the biological significance of the NtMinD/HC-Pro interaction. We purified the NtMinD and HC-Pro proteins using a prokaryotic protein purification system and tested the effect of HC-Pro on the ATPase activity of NtMinD in vitro. We found that the ATPase activity of NtMinD was reduced in the presence of HC-Pro. In addition, another important chloroplast division related protein, NtMinE, was cloned from the cDNA of Nicotiana tabacum. And the NtMinD/NtMinE interaction site was mapped to the C-terminus of NtMinD, which overlaps the NtMinD/HC-Pro interaction site. Yeast three-hybrid assay demonstrated that HC-Pro competes with NtMinE for binding to NtMinD. HC-Pro was previously reported to accumulate in the chloroplasts of PVY-infected tobacco and we confirmed this result in our present work. The NtMinD/NtMinE interaction is very important in the regulation of chloroplast division. To demonstrate the influence of HC-Pro on chloroplast division, we generated HC-Pro transgenic tobacco with a transit peptide to retarget HC-Pro to the chloroplasts. The HC-Pro transgenic plants showed enlarged chloroplasts. Our present study demonstrated that the interaction between HC-Pro and NtMinD interfered with the function of NtMinD in chloroplast division, which results in enlarged chloroplasts in HC-Pro transgenic tobacco. The HC-Pro/NtMinD interaction may cause the formation of abnormal chloroplasts in PVY-infected plants.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Adenosine Triphosphatases / metabolism*
  • Chloroplasts / ultrastructure*
  • Cysteine Endopeptidases / genetics
  • Cysteine Endopeptidases / metabolism*
  • Nicotiana / genetics
  • Nicotiana / virology*
  • Plant Diseases / virology
  • Plant Proteins / metabolism
  • Plants, Genetically Modified*
  • Potyvirus / metabolism*
  • Viral Proteins / genetics
  • Viral Proteins / metabolism*

Substances

  • Plant Proteins
  • Viral Proteins
  • Cysteine Endopeptidases
  • HC-Pro protein, potyvirus
  • Adenosine Triphosphatases

Grants and funding

This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (30830077), http://www.nsfc.gov.cn/. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.