The effect of TuMV on translation initiation in Arabidopsis

Arabidopsis ecotype Col-0 expressing RPL18 fused to His & Flag epitopes (RPL18-HF) under 35S control was used to discern the effects of Turnip mosaic virus (TuMV) infection on host translation initiation. Plants were grown in LC-1 soil in 12 hour days and infected by TuMV-GFP or mock-inoculated just prior to sending up bolts. Samples were taken from rosette leaves 10 days after inoculation. Only tissue fluorescing GFP was selected from the virus-infected samples. Similar tissue was sampled from mock-infected leaves. FLAG antibody was used to isolate RPL18-HF. The RNA co-immunoprecipitated with RPL18-HF is fully translation-initiated. This translation-initiated RNA, also referred to as polysomal RNA, was isolated and compared to total RNA under both mock and TuMV-infected states to find TuMV-induced changes in host translation initiation. ****[PLEXdb(