Skip to main content
ISMPMI Congress 2025 Main banner
Icon Legend
This session is not in your schedule.
This session is in your schedule. Click again to remove it.

Poster

Session: Session 1 Presenting Authors at Posters (Odds)

P-213 - The plant DNA geminiviruses selectively re-purpose the host DNA replication machinery for their multiplication

Monday, July 14, 2025
13:30 - 15:15  
Location: Confex Hall 3
Microbial infection strategies (pathogens & non-pathogens)

    Presenting Author(s)

  • CS

    Chaonan Shi

    PhD
    Department of Plant Biochemistry, Centre for Plant Molecular Biology (ZMBP), Eberhard Karls University
    Tübingen, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany

    • Author(s)

  • DP

    Delphine Maya Pott

    Department of Plant Biochemistry, Centre for Plant Molecular Biology (ZMBP), Eberhard Karls University
    Tuebingen, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany

  • LM

    Laura Medina-Puche

    Department of Plant Biochemistry, Centre for Plant Molecular Biology (ZMBP), Eberhard Karls University
    Tubingen, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany

  • HW

    Hua Wei

    Department of Plant Biochemistry, Centre for Plant Molecular Biology (ZMBP), Eberhard Karls University
    Tübingen, GERMANY

  • BK

    Björn Krenz

    Leibniz Institute DSMZ
    Braunschweig, Niedersachsen, Germany

  • XW

    Xiao-Wei Wang

    Collage of Agriculture and Biotechnology, Zhejiang University
    Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China (People's Republic)

  • RL

    Rosa Lozano-Durán

    University of Tü​bingen
    Tübingen, GERMANY

Geminiviruses are plant viruses with circular, single-stranded DNA genomes causing devastating diseases in crops worldwide. Essential host factors required for viral replication can serve as potential targets to develop strategies to control infection. We have previously shown that DNA polymerases alpha and delta are required for viral replication, which occurs through a rolling-circle replication (RCR) mechanism. However, the composition of the viral replisome remains mostly elusive. The viral replication-associated (Rep) protein is highly conserved, and the only virus-encoded protein essential for this process. Here, we used Rep from tomato yellow leaf curl virus (TYLCV) as a bait to capture host factors involved in viral RCR via TurboID-based proximity labelling (PL) followed by mass spectrometry (MS). Our data demonstrate that geminiviruses exploit the molecular machinery mediating eukaryotic leading-strand, but not lagging-strand, DNA synthesis in the bidirectional replication fork. An exception is the DNA polymerases, which are swapped, perhaps contributing to the high mutation rates observed in these viruses. Therefore, geminiviruses selectively repurpose the plant DNA replication machinery to perform RCR. Furthermore, our findings suggest that the composition of the viral replisome is conserved among plant-infecting ssDNA viruses. Collectively, our study sheds new light on viral replication and lays the foundation for the identification of new antiviral targets.