The invasion of tobacco mosaic virus RNA induces endoplasmic reticulum stress-related autophagy in HeLa cells

Li, Li; Wang, Li; Xiao, Ruijing; Zhu, Guoguo; Li, Yan; Liu, Changxuan; Yang, Ru; Tang, Zhiqing; Li, Jie; Huang, Wei; Chen, Lang; Zheng, Xiaoling; He, Yuling; Tan, Jinquan

In our study, we chose one of the most widely studied positivestrand RNA plant viruses, the TMV (tobacco mosaic virus), as the model for the next potential infectious virus [8] . In addition to having the ability to infect plant hosts, especially tobacco [9] , previous reports have shown that TMV-prosomes can be detected in vertebrate cells and animal cells, which suggests that TMV has the ability to cross species. For instance, Knowland showed that RNA from TMV can be translated inside oocytes of the frog, Xenopus laevis [10] ; Salomon and Bar-Joseph [11] reported that RNA from both TMV strains were likely translated in rabbit reticulocytes; and Dimitriadis and Georgatsos [12] indicated that synthesis of the TMV CP (coat protein) followed the migration of viral RNA into isolated mouse liver mitochondria. These studies prompted us to investigate whether TMV-RNA has biological activity in human cells. Studies to date have been limited not only to the study of plant infection but also to other species. However, increasing evidence has indicated that some viruses can cross species [3, 13] . Herein, we tested the novel idea that TMV might evolve to invade human cells.