The role of post-Golgi transport pathways and sorting motifs in the plasmodesmal targeting of the movement protein (MP) of Ourmia melon virus (OuMV)

Natali Ozber; Paolo Margaria; Charles T. Anderson; Massimo Turina; Cristina Rosa

To understand the specific role of LL motif in the plasmodesmal targeting of OuMV MP, N-terminal domain truncated OuMV MP mutants retaining the LL motif, MP_84-first 84 amino acids of MP, and retaining both LL and Y motifs, MP_102-first 102 amino acids of MP, were generated based on predicted secondary structure of MP. We monitored the targeting of MP truncated as described above. Both mutants were, however, unable to reach PD (Fig. S6) , suggesting that the presence of the LL motif in a truncated MP variant is not sufficient to support plasmodesmal targeting of MP, and the C-terminal region of MP is also involved in this process. Moreover, MP_102 had noticeably lower expression levels (very close to the background signal) compared to MP_84.