AUTHOR=Hohn Thomas TITLE=RNA based viral silencing suppression in plant pararetroviruses JOURNAL=Frontiers in Plant Science VOLUME=6 YEAR=2015 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/plant-science/articles/10.3389/fpls.2015.00398 DOI=10.3389/fpls.2015.00398 ISSN=1664-462X ABSTRACT=

The 35S promoter of cauliflower mosaic virus and that of other plant pararetroviruses gives rise to an RNA, which is both a pre-genome and a polycistronic mRNA. The 600 nucleotide long very structured leader of this RNA is also transcribed separately. The resulting 8S RNA is then converted to a double strand giving rise to a huge set of siRNAs, which suppress silencing. In this Mini-Review I discuss how this versatile stretch of 600 nts constitutes a masterpiece of evolution.