An insight into the tomato spotted wilt virus (TSWV), tomato and thrips interaction

Abstract

Lycopersicum esculentum (tomato), is a member of the Solanaceae family with a global production of approximately 159 million tons per year. However, the productivity of tomato is constrained by many factors including biotic and abiotic stresses. Of these, tomato spotted wilt virus (TSWV) is one of the major threats to tomato productivity. TSWV is a ribovirus and is transmitted by small insects commonly known as thrips. Several approaches have been utilized in the past few decades to understand the plant and thrips responses against TSWV. These include conventional molecular biology to high-throughput genomics, transcriptomics, and proteomics approaches which have led to the identification of several genes/proteins involved in the tomato/thrips-TSWV interaction. Moreover, several genes (such as Sw-1a and Sw-1b, sw-2, sw-3, sw-4, Sw-5, Sw-6, and Sw-7) and proteins (like DNA-J) have also been identified from its plant hosts which provide resistance against this deadly virus. In this mini-review, we are summarizing the progress made so far in this area to provide the overview of tomato, thrips and TSWV interaction