Nicotiana benthamiana como organismo modelo para estudos com o complexo viral causador da meleira do mamoeiro

• Ano de defesa: 2024
• Autor(a) principal: Cunha, Esdras Mendes da
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Tipo de acesso: Acesso aberto
• Idioma: por
• Instituição de defesa: Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo; BR; Mestrado em Biotecnologia; Centro de Ciências da Saúde; UFES; Programa de Pós-Graduação em Biotecnologia
• Palavras-chave em Português: Carica papaya; Biotecnologia vegetal; Biologia molecular; Biotecnologia
• Link de acesso: http://repositorio.ufes.br/handle/10/17946

The papaya tree (Carica Papaya L.) is a plant native to the Americas and due to the economic value of papaya, the plant is produced in tropical areas around the world. One of the viruses that plague producers is papaya stick disease, which is caused by a viral complex, Papaya meleira virus and Papaya meleira virus 2. This work aims to establish the Nicotiana benthamiana plant as a model organism for future studies with the PMeV and PMeV2 viruses, the viral complex that causes papaya honey. N. benthamiana is the most used experimental host in plant virology, mainly due to the large number of diverse plant viruses that can infect it. Since, working with C. papaya presents significant challenges due to its biological complexity, especially related to its pre- and post-flowering time, with a flowering period that can take four to seven months. N. benthamiana in fact accumulates viral loads for sixty days, as occurs with longer-established viruses. During the entire period of sixty days after inoculation, infection levels are considerable to establish N. benthamiana as a host. The inoculum is passed between different individuals, maintaining the infectious capacity of the complex without the need to pass through a vector. The presence of viruses was not observed in plants derived from seeds of infected plants. The results obtained in this work indicate that N. benthamiana is a model organism for future studies of gene silencing in order to establish ways to control papaya honey.