Novel anti-viral natural product ε-poly-l-lysine (ε-PL) produced by Streptomyces is a homopolymer of l-lysine, of which the underlying molecular mode of action remains to be further elucidated. In this study, ε-PL induced significant fragmentation of tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) virions and delayed the systemic infection of TMV-GFP as well as wild-type TMV in plants. ε-PL treatment also markedly inhibited RNA accumulation of TMV in tobacco BY-2 protoplasts. The results of RNA-seq indicated that the agent induced significantly differential expression of genes that are associated with defense response, stress response, autophagy, and ubiquitination. Among them, 15 critical differential expressed genes were selected for real-time quantitative PCR validation. We further demonstrated that ε-PL can induce host defense responses by assessing the activity of several defense-related enzymes in plants. Our results provided valuable insights into molecular anti-viral mode of action for ε-PL, which is expected to be applied as a novel microbial natural product against plant virus diseases.
Keywords: BY-2 protoplasts; anti-viral agents; induced resistance; transcriptome analysis; ε-poly-l-lysine.