The hypersensitive response (HR) is one of the most important defense responses during the incompatible interaction between plant and pathogen. The viral determinant of HR on legumes induced by Cucumber mosaic virus (CMV) was studied, and our previous results showed that 243 nucleotides on 2a polymerase gene of CMV were involved in the induction of HR on leg-umes. With further analysis of the nucleotides and amino acids in this region, the amino acids Phe and Ala at positions 631 and 641 in the 2a polymerase of CMV-Fny, a legume local necrotic strain, were specifically exchanged to Tyr and Ser, respectively and simultaneously, in the 2a polymerase of CMV-P1, a legume systemic infecting strain, and three point mutants were constructed. The point mutant Fny-F/Y (Phe631 to Tyr) induced large necrotic lesions instead of pinpoint lesions, and the size of lesions could enlarge from initial sites. The point mutant Fny-A/S (Ala641 to Ser) induced similar symptoms as CMV-Fny. The double-point mutant Fny-FA/YS (Phe631 to Tyr and Ala641 to Ser) infected the legumes systemically without HR. These data indicate that the induc-tion of HR on legumes is co-determined by two amino acids at positions 631 and 641 in CMV 2a polymerase.
We had isolated and identified two Cucumber mosaic virus (CMV) isolates, the CMV red bean (CMV-RB) isolate and the CMV pea (CMV-P1) isolate. CMV-RB induces necrotic local lesions on inoculated leaves of broad bean, pea, cowpea and bean, and could not infect these hosts systemically. However, CMV-P1 was able to infect these legumes systemically. To study the difference of pathogenic-ity on the legumes induced by these two CMV isolates, the full-length infectious cDNA clones of CMV-Fny, which induced similar symptoms as CMV-RB in the four legumes, were used. The 243 nucleotides fragment, which encodes highly conserved GDD amino acid motif on 2a replicase gene of CMV-Fny RNA2, was replaced with that of CMV-P1. The constructed chimeric virus FP could infect these legumes systemically. The exchange of this region changes the virus symptoms on the legumes, indicating that this 243 nucleotides fragment has major effect on pathogenicity of CMV on the legumes.
