| Abstract: | Background Salicylic acid (SA) regulates multiple anti-viral mechanisms, including mechanism(s) that may be negatively regulated by the
mitochondrial enzyme, alternative oxidase (AOX), the sole component of the alternative respiratory pathway. However, studies
of this mechanism can be confounded by SA-mediated induction of RNA-dependent RNA polymerase 1, a component of the antiviral
RNA silencing pathway. We made transgenic Nicotiana benthamiana plants in which alternative respiratory pathway capacity was either increased by constitutive expression of AOX, or decreased
by expression of a dominant-negative mutant protein (AOX-E). N. benthamiana was used because it is a natural mutant that does not express a functional RNA-dependent RNA polymerase 1. |
