Biofertilizers & Plant Vectors

plant DNA viruses

DNA viruses contain DNA as their inheritable material. DNA viruses infecting plants are classified into two groups according to the Baltimore classification of viruses single- stranded (ssDNA) DNA viruses (e.g., Geminiviruses) and double- stranded DNA viruses (e.g., Caulimoviruses). There are smaller plant DNA viruses, but they beget a significant number of ruinous conditions in multitudinous crops worldwide and oppressively reduce the crop yield. Plant DNA viruses are especially rare as compared with animal and bacterial DNA viruses. This chapter focuses on the biochemistry, replication and molecular genetics of plant DNA viruses. The ssDNA plant viruses are small, render many proteins, and depend substantially on the host factor for their replication. Geminiviruses, a recently discovered group of plant viruses, have single- stranded indirect DNA in their genome.