Title: Crinivirus plant and whitefly vector interactions: Lettuce infectious yellow virus

Presenter: Prof. Bryce W. Falk

University: Department of Plant Pathology, University of California at Davis

Time: 14:00-15:00, October 23, 2012

Venue: Room A203, Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences

Introduction of the Presenter:

Professor Bryce Falk received his Ph.D in 1978 at University of California, Berkeley, majored in plant pathology. He is professor of department of plant pathology in University of California at Davis. Dr. Falk is a Fellow of the American Phytopathology Society and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Director of the UC Davis, Biosafety 3P Contained Research Facility. He served as senior or associated editor of Molecular Plant Pathology, Virology and Phytopathology etc. Currently, he is on the editorial board of Annual Review of Phytopathology. Professor Falk’s primary research efforts have been directed towards understanding the biology and molecular biology of plant viruses. His efforts have covered many different plant viruses including Potyviruses, Closteroviruses, Cucumoviruses, Poleroviruses, Umbraviruses and Tenuiviruses. His discoveries include development of a widely used approach for indexing lettuce seeds for Lettuce mosaic virus, discovery of the Polerovirus-asscoiated RNAs, discovery of cap-snatching as the mechanism for generating Tenuivirus-mRNAs in plants, and fundamental aspects of plant virus:insect vector interactions. During his seminar, he will describe the Lettuce infectious yellow virus and the molecular interactions between crinivirus plant and whitetfly vector.

Key Publications:

1. Walia, JJ and Falk, BW. Fig mosaic virus mRNAs show generation by cap-snatching. Virology, 2012, 426: 162 – 166

2. Stewart, LR, Medina, V, Tian, T, Turina, M, Falk, BW, and Ng, JCKA. Mutation in the Lettuce infectious yellows virus minor coat protein disrupts whitefly transmission but not in planta systemic movement. J. Virol, 2010, 84: 12165 – 12173

3. Wang, J, Stewart, LR, Kiss, Z and Falk, BW. Lettuce infectious yellows virus RNA 1-encoded p34 is an RNA binding protein and exhibits perinuclear localization. Virology, 2010, 403: 67 – 77

4. WangJ., 1, Turinab M., Stewarta L.R., . Lindbo J.A, Falk B.W. Agroinoculation of the Crinivirus, Lettuce infectious yellows virus, for systemic plant infection. Virology, 2009, 392: 131 – 136

5. Kumar, P., Uratsu, S., Dandekar, A. M., and Falk, B. W. Tomato bushy stunt virus recombination guided by introduced miRNA target sequences. J. Virology. 2009, 83:10472 – 10479

6. Pignatta D, Kumar P, Turina M, Dandekar A, Falk BW, Quantitative analysis of efficient endogenous gene silencing in Nicotiana benthamiana plants using tomato bushy stunt virus vectors that retain the capsid protein gene. Mol Plant Microbe Interact. 2007, 20(6):609-18.

7. Lin HX, Rubio L, Smythe AB, Falk BW. Molecular population genetics of Cucumber mosaic virus in California: evidence for founder effects and reassortment. J Virol. 2004, 78:6666-6675

8. Falk BW and Bruening G. Will transgenic crops generate new viruses and new diseases? Science, 1994: 1395-1396