Brachypodium and plant viruses: entwined tools for discovery

Abstract

In just a decade, Brachypodium distachyon (Brachypodium) has fulfilled its initial promise as a key tool for realizing new strategies for understanding host and pathogen biology during virus infections of the Poaceae. For this Tansley Insight, I have identified four areasfrom the laboratory to the fieldthat may be particularly fruitful to explore, with a particular focus on Brachypodium-virus infections. These focus areas include: mechanisms of RNA modification of host plants and viruses; coevolution of virus-host interactions; viruses as tools of discovery; and how to explicate the complex outcomes during multivirus infections. Here, I broadly frame our current knowledge of Brachypodium-virus interactions and how these findings may inform virus studies of grasses in the laboratory, field and natural settings.

Brachypodium: 20 years as a grass biology model system; the way forward?

“…A recent comprehensive review of B. distachyon-viral interactions has highlighted the value of this model in elucidating complex virus-virus host interactions [108]. Viral interactions can be synergistic, interfering, cooperative, or attenuating and some have been described in panicum mosaic virus (PMV) infections of B. distachyon.…”

The CC–NB–LRR protein BSR1 from Brachypodium confers resistance to Barley stripe mosaic virus in gramineous plants by recognising TGB1 movement protein

“…Brachypodium distachyon is a member of the Poaceae subfamily Pooideae and has been proposed as a model species for studies of cool season cereal crops such as barley, wheat, oats and rye (Brutnell et al ., 2015; Scholthof et al ., 2018; Catalán & Vogel, 2020; Scholthof, 2020; Hasterok et al ., 2022). Brachypodium can be infected by a variety of cash crop pathogens.…”

Advances on genomics, biology, ecology and evolution of Brachypodium, a bridging model grass system for cereals and biofuel grasses

“…The Tansley insight by Scholthof (2020, in this issue) directs us to four main research areas that are revealing new discoveries in grass–virus interactions. Analysis of RNA modification of the host and viruses during infection has detected a plethora of alternative splicing events from which certain types of messenger RNAs (mRNAs) involved in resistance response have been identified in B. distachyon and other grasses, as well as polyadenylations of viral RNAs that may reflect a host response to viral infection.…”