Current Research

• Plant viruses are widespread in the natural environment and exhibit enormous variation in their structure and composition. Agricultural crops are under constant attack from viruses making an understanding of virus biology a necessity for devising new, more effective approaches to prevent virus disease in plants.
• Current work includes a range of studies of viruses of raspberry, an important crop in Scotland in terms of both economics and nutritional health. One part of the work is to develop systems to allow us to study natural resistance in raspberry to Raspberry bushy dwarf virus (RBDV). This virus is transmitted between plants by infected pollen possibly with the assistance of various pollinating insects, and has a significant impact on raspberry production due to yield loss (particularly when associated with other viruses) and effect on fruit quality (specifically the development of misshapen, crumbly fruit). Molecular characterisation of the replication mechanism of RBDV is underway.
• Other projects involve the molecular characterisation of some viruses that are known to exist in the UK raspberry crop but are not well understood. These include Black raspberry necrosis virus (BRNV), Raspberry leaf spot virus (RLSV), Raspberry leaf mottle virus (RLMV) and Raspberry vein chlorosis virus (RVCV). We will use this information to study epidemiological aspects of the diseases caused by these viruses and to develop molecular diagnostics to be used in the SCRI High Health Certification Scheme. We have also discovered a new, negative-strand RNA virus that is probably transmitted by eriophyid mites and we are studying this virus in more detail.

Research History

• In recent years I have researched the mechanism of action of the P19 protein of Tomato bushy stunt virus (TBSV). This is a pathogenicity protein that has a role in suppression of RNA silencing, symptom production in plants, and long- and short-distance movement of the virus within the plant. We have discovered an interaction between P19 and members of the ALY family of plant proteins.
• Other aspects of my research have included fundamental studies, primarily on Tobacco rattle virus (TRV), an important pathogen of potatoes in Scotland, Europe and North America, and Pea early-browning virus (PEBV), to understand the mechanism of transmission of these viruses by nematodes, a process that is central to the diseases they cause in the field.
• More recently it has been realized that plant viruses can be developed into tools that have great potential for functional genomic analysis of plants. I have engineered TRV, and the related viruses PEBV and Pepper ringspot virus (PepRSV), to be useful as vectors for gene expression and gene silencing in a variety of plant species.

Recent Publications

• McGavin, W.J. and MacFarlane, S.A. 2009. Rubus chlorotic mottle virus, a new sobemovirus infecting raspberry and bramble. Virus Research 139, 10-13.
• MacFarlane, S.A. and McGavin, W.J. 2009. Genome activation by Raspberry bushy dwarf virus coat protein. Journal of General Virology 90, 747-753.
• MacFarlane, S.A. and Uhrig, J.F. 2008. Yeast two-hybrid assay to identify host-virus interactions. In Methods in Molecular Biology, Vol 451, Plant Virology Protocols: From virus sequence to protein function, 2^nd edition, Eds. GD Foster, IE Johansen, Y Hong and PD Nagy, pp 649-672, Humana Press.
• Kim, S.H., MacFarlane, S., Kalinina, N.O., Rakitina, D.V., Ryabov, E.V., Gillespie, T., Haupt, S., Brown, J.W.S. and Taliansky, M. 2007. Interaction between a plant virus-encoded protein and the major nucleolar protein, fibrillarin, is required for virus systemic infection. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 104, 11115-11120.
• Kim, S.H., Ryabov, E.V., Kalinina, N.O., Rakitina, D.V., Gillespie, T., MacFarlane, S., Haupt, S., Brown, J.W.S. and Taliansky, M. 2007. Cajal bodies and the nucleolus are required for a plant virus systemic infection. Embo Journal 26, 2169-2179.
• MacFarlane, S. A. 2007. Tobravirus. In Encyclopedia of Virology, 3rd Edition. Mahy, B. and van Regenmortel, M. (eds.), Elsevier, Oxford.
• Canto, T., Uhrig, J.F., Swanson, M., Wright, K.M. and MacFarlane, S.A. 2006. Translocation of the TBSV P19 protein into the nucleus by ALY compromises its silencing suppressor activity. Journal of Virology 80, 9064-9072.
• Holeva, R.C. and MacFarlane, S.A. 2006. Yeast two-hybrid study of Tobacco rattle virus coat protein and 2b protein interactions. Archives of Virology 151, 2123-2132.
• Uhrig, J.F., Canto, T., Marshall, D. and MacFarlane, S.A. 2004. Relocalisation of nuclear ALY proteins to the cytoplasm by the Tomato bushy stunt virus P19 pathogenicity protein. Plant Physiology 135, 2411-2423.
• Constantin, G.D., Krath, B.N., MacFarlane, S.A., Nicolaisen, M., Johansen, I.E. and Lund, O.S. 2004. Virus induced gene silencing as a tool for functional genomics in a legume species. Plant Journal 40, 622-631.
• Reavy, B., Dawson, S., Canto, T. and MacFarlane, S. A. 2004. Heterologous expression of plant virus genes that suppress post-transcriptional gene silencing results in suppression of RNA interference in Drosophila cells. BMC Biotechnology 4, 18.
• Senda, M., Masuta, C., Ohnishi, S., Goto, K., Kasai, A., Sano, T.,  Hong, J.-S. and MacFarlane, S. 2004. Patterning of Virus-Infected Glycine max Seed Coat is Associated with Suppression of Endogenous Silencing of Chalcone Synthase Genes. Plant Cell 16, 807-818.
• Yu, D., Fan, B., MacFarlane, S.A. and Chen, Z. 2003. Analysis of the involvement of an inducible Arabidopsis RNA-dependent RNA Polymerase in Antiviral Defense. Molecular Plant-Microbe Interactions 16, 206-216.

Posters

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Attachment	Size
Use of Fluorescent Chimeras to Characterise ALY Domains Involved in Nucleolar Targeting and Interaction with the TBSV P19	225.16 KB
Diagnosis of virus diseases of raspberry using new sequence information	1.62 MB
Co-operation between plant enemies - do raspberry viruses attract more aphid vectors?	241.13 KB
Genome activation by Raspberry bushy dwarf virus coat protein	1.31 MB
Identifying viruses in raspberry	451.93 KB