Rosmarinus Officinalis (ROSEMARY) induced plants defense activation against ARN viruses.

GERHARDT, N.; SICILIANO, F.; MORENO, S.; VOJNOV, A.A; MARANO, M.R.

Aguas de Lindóia, São Paulo, Brazil

Congreso; XXXVII Annual Meeting of the Brazilian Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (SBBq) and XI Congress of the Panamerican Association for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (PABMB); 2008

Brazilian Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (SBBq)

Biotic and abiotic stresses pose the biggest threat to crop plants. Defense activators confer enhanced disease protection capacity to various host species against multiple pathogens by stimulating common defense mechanisms. This enhanced capacity is termed "priming". Plant viruses have a significant impact on agronomic losses worldwide. The susceptibility to virus infections is associated with the absence of efficient chemical treatments that protect plant from virus infection. Tobacco necrosis virus (TNV) is an ARN virus that infects several plant species, including tobacco, olive, bean, cucumber, potato, tulip, some woody plants like pear, apple, citrus, and grapevines. Plants continue to be a major source of chemical diversity for the screening and identification of new compounds with “priming” activity. We have evaluated the biological action of organic and aqueous rosemary extracts against TNV on Nicotiana tabacum plants (tobacco). Our results showed that rosemary extracts impair virus replication and virus movement, reducing the number and size of virus lesions in Nicotiana tabacum. Histochemical analysis showed that resistance to TNV is associated with the presence of micro-oxidative bursts, elicited by rosemary treatment. We proposed that the rosemary extract might activate the plant defense response acting as "priming", which prevents or limits the challenging to virus infection. These findings substantiate rosemary’s potential as an important source for new antiviral agents. Our research is focused on questions: what are the regulatory mechanisms behind priming induced for Rosemary in tobacco?