Mathematical model of plant-virus interactions mediated by RNA interference

TL;DR

This paper develops a mathematical model to understand how RNA interference influences the interactions and co-infection dynamics of two competing plant viruses, revealing conditions for synergistic or antagonistic effects.

Contribution

It introduces a novel mathematical framework that incorporates RNA interference into plant-virus interaction models, analyzing its impact on co-infection outcomes.

Findings

Co-infection can increase or decrease virus potency depending on cross-protection or cross-enhancement.

RNA interference significantly influences viral dynamics and host recovery.

Parameter regions determine whether viral strains exhibit synergistic or antagonistic behavior.

Abstract

Cross-protection, which refers to a process whereby artificially inoculating a plant with a mild strain provides protection against a more aggressive isolate of the virus, is known to be an effective tool of disease control in plants. In this paper we derive and analyse a new mathematical model of the interactions between two competing viruses with particular account for RNA interference. Our results show that co-infection of the host can either increase or decrease the potency of individual infections depending on the levels of cross-protection or cross-enhancement between different viruses. Analytical and numerical bifurcation analyses are employed to investigate the stability of all steady states of the model in order to identify parameter regions where the system exhibits synergistic or antagonistic behaviour between viral strains, as well as different types of host recovery. We show that not only viral attributes but also the propagating component of RNA-interference in plants can play an important role in determining the dynamics.