Tomato Chlorosis Virus Infection Facilitates MED Reproduction by Elevating Expression

Transmission of plant pathogenic viruses mostly relies on insect vectors. Plant virus could enhance its transmission by modulating the vector. Previously, we showed that feeding on virus infected plants can promote the reproduction of the sweet potato whitefly, MED (Q biotype). In this study, using a whitefly-Tomato chlorosis virus (ToCV)-tomato system, we investigated how ToCV modulates MED reproduction to facilitate its spread. Here, we hypothesized that ToCV-infected tomato plants would increase MED fecundity via elevated gene expression. As a result, fecundity and the relative expression of MED was measured on ToCV-infected and uninfected tomato plants on days 4, 8, 12, 16, 20 and 24. The role of on MED reproduction was examined in the presence and absence of ToCV using dietary RNAi. ToCV infection significantly increased MED fecundity on days 12, 16 and 20, and elevated expression on days 8, 12 and 16. Both ovarian development and fecundity of MED were suppressed when was silenced with or without ToCV infection. These combined results suggest that ToCV infection increases MED fecundity via elevated expression.