A short history of plant virology. III. The thirties

The Thirties testified on the outstanding development of plant virology: the new discoveries formalized the concept of virus on a physicochemical background. Plant viruses, which had received their own taxonomical position at the end of the Twenties, were no longer considered as simple "infective pathogens" as their size, shape and chemical nature were determined, particularly for one of them--tobacco mosaic virus (TMV). This paramount contribution was achieved as a consequence of a functional interaction between biology on one side, and chemistry and physics on the other side, from the development of which molecular biology was born. The chemical characterization of TMV developed from the first determination of nitrogen presence in purified virus, performed by Carl Vinson, through the identification of TMV as Wendell Stanley's infective, autoreplicative protein macromolecule, to the final discovery of its nucleoprotein nature by the British group of Frederick Bawden. Thorough analytical techniques--in particular electron microscopy--led to disclose the exact shape and size of TMV particle. These discoveries, that opened a new era of virology, were corroborated by new knowledge that, although less explosive, can be considered of great importance for the development of plant virology. The methodologies to estimate viral activity; the study of the relationships between viruses and insect vectors; the studies on virus spread within plants; the identification of non-sterile type of resistance and of correlation between single plant genes and viral pathogenesis benefited plant virology of a set of knowledge that, together with the discoveries on the physico-chemical properties of TMV, raised plant virology from a secondary branch of plant pathology to a new independent science by itself.