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Updated: Aug 2, 2026

Virus-induced Gene Silencing (VIGS) in Nicotiana benthamiana and Tomato
Published on: June 10, 2009
Tomato spotted wilt virus transcriptase in vitro displays a preference for cap donors with multiple base
Ingeborg van Knippenberg1, Monique Lamine, Rob Goldbach
1Laboratory of Virology, Wageningen University, Binnenhaven 11, 6709PD Wageningen, The Netherlands.
Abstract:
Transcription of segmented negative-strand RNA viruses is initiated by cap snatching: a host mRNA is cleaved generally at 10-20 nt from its 5' capped end and the resulting capped leader used to prime viral transcription. For Tomato spotted wilt virus (TSWV), type species of the plant-infecting Tospovirus genus within the Bunyaviridae, cap donors were previously shown to require a single base complementarity to the ultimate or penultimate viral template sequence. More recently, the occurrence in vitro of "re-snatching" of viral mRNAs, i.e., the use of viral mRNAs as cap donors, has been demonstrated for TSWV. To estimate the relative occurrence of re-snatching compared to snatching of host mRNAs, the use of cap donors with either single, double, or multiple complementarity to the viral template was analyzed in pair-wise competition in TSWV in vitro transcription assays. A strong preference was observed for multiple-basepairing donors.
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