Pervasive splicing in a plant DNA virus

Pervasive RNA splicing in tomato yellow leaf curl virus enhances infectivity by expanding its proteome, with eight splicing events identified and six validated.

• Why it matters: Understanding splicing in plant viruses challenges the assumption that it is rare, highlighting a potential mechanism for increasing viral complexity and adaptability that has been overlooked.
• What they did: The study used transcriptome analysis to identify eight splicing events in the virus, validating six and demonstrating that two depend on the plant spliceosome, linking splicing to viral function.
• The result: Impairing splicing reduced viral accumulation and symptom severity, indicating that splicing is crucial for infectivity and suggesting a need to reassess plant virus transcriptomes for similar mechanisms.