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SUMMARY:Do Volatiles Emitted by Virus–Infected Tomato Plants Attract Bum
 blebees  and Enhance Host Reproductive Fitness? - Sanjie Jiang
DTSTART:20140627T123000Z
DTEND:20140627T125500Z
UID:TALK51422@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Megan Cooper
DESCRIPTION:Optimum agricultural productivity that relies on the pollinati
 on services of bees is threatened by the recent decline in bee numbers and
  bee species diversity. For this reason\, an increased understanding of th
 e relationships between bees and plants is urgently needed. Viruses affect
  the interactions between plants and insect vectors by altering emission o
 f plant volatile organic compounds (VOCs). We have shown that virus infect
 ion also affects interactions with beneficial insects. Previous work in th
 e lab showed that tomato (Solanum esculentum) plants infected with Cucumbe
 r mosaic virus (CMV) were more attractive to bumblebees than mock-inoculat
 ed tomato plants. It has been theorized that this may have impact on the e
 volution of plant resistance by encouraging pollen acquisition and dissemi
 nation from flowers of infected (i.e. susceptible genotype) plants. In Ara
 bidopsis thaliana\, infection with CMV did not make plants more attractive
  to the bees\, but by using conditioning assays\, we showed that the bees 
 could perceive differences between the VOC profiles of plants infected by 
 CMV and mock-inoculated plants. Furthermore\, bees could also be trained i
 n conditioning assays to recognize transgenic plants expressing the 2b pro
 tein (the RNA silencing suppressor of CMV). Interestingly\, bees found it 
 more difficult to distinguish between A. thaliana plants infected with a C
 MV mutant lacking the gene for the 2b protein and mock-inoculated plants. 
 This suggests that silencing pathways may be involved in regulation of the
  biochemical pathways responsible for bee-perceivable VOC production.\n\nD
 uring my first year I have carried out four main activities. Two of these\
 , characterization of a European isolate of CMV for use in greenhouse expe
 riments\, and the generation of transgenic tomato plants expressing marker
  genes and anti-CMV artificial microRNAs\, are aimed at providing tools ne
 eded in Years 2 and 3 to further investigate the innate preference of bees
  for CMV-infected tomatoes and investigate the hypothesis that this innate
  preference of bees for CMV-infected plants makes them better pollen paren
 ts (a pay-back by the virus). The other two activities were: 1. the initia
 l characterization of VOC profiles of tomato plants that were mock-inocula
 ted\, infected with CMV or infected with the CMV 2b deletion mutant (this 
 last dataset being in progress)\, and 2. Further investigation of the role
  of the 2b protein in affecting bee-perceivable VOC emission in Arabidopsi
 s. \n
LOCATION:Department of Plant Sciences\, Large Lecture Theatre
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