Ultrastructural Changes During Programmed Cell Death of Tobacco Leaf Tissues Infected with Tobacco mosaic virus

Tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum cvs.Xanthi-nc and NC 82) plants infected with Tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) were examined ultrastructurally. Local lesions produced by TMV were sunken and withered. The plants were subjected to temperature shift (TS), a method to produce programmed cell death (PCD), by placing the infected plants initially at high temperature (35$^{\circ}C$) for 2 days and then shifting them to greenhouse temperature (22-27$^{\circ}C$). As a result, expanded lesions around the original necrotic lesions were produced. The expanded area initially had no symptoms, but it withered and became necrotic 15 h after TS. No ultrastructural changes related to PCD were noted at 0 h after TS in Xanthi-nc tobacco tissues as well as in healthy and susceptible tobacco tissues infected with TMV, At 6 h after TS, chloroplasts were convoluted and cytoplasm began to be depleted; however no necrotic cells were found. At 17 h after TS, ground cytoplasm of affected cells was completely depleted and chloroplasts were stacked together with bent cell wall or dispersed in the intracellular space. Necrotic cells were also observed, containing virus particles in the necrotic cytoplasm. There were initially two types of symptoms in the expanded lesions: chlorosis and non-chlorosis (green). Abundant TMV particles and X-bodies were only found in the chlorotic tissue areas. These results suggest that PCD by TMV infection may start with the wilting of cells and tissues before necrotic lesion formation.