Customer Reviews

Matthews' Plant Virology, Fourth Edition

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That the study of plant viruses is of very important does not even need to be said, given the destruction that they cause to food plants every year. This sizable book, having appreciable gravitational pull, is written for experts and students who intend to specialize in plant virology. However, anyone who is curious about the subject will find the book packed full of information, even though at times it reads more like a literature survey. In addition, many of the techniques in genetic engineering were first applied to food crops and other plants. Therefore anyone who is interested in transgenic technologies or functional genomics will find the book very informative. This reviewer was mostly interested in the effects of plant viruses on photosynthesis and the role of gene silencing, if any, in plant viruses. These topics are discussed at various places in the book.

Some of the questions that arise when reading the book include the following (not all of which are answered in the book):

1. To what extent are humans responsible for spreading viruses to plants by moving them from one place to another?
2. How is viral infection dependent on the manner of crop rotation? On the sowing time of seed?
3. How does the ecology and epidemiology of viruses with nematode vectors differ from that of viruses with air-borne vectors?
4. What role do weeds play in the incidence of virus diseases?
5. Why does viral transmission by grafting result in a different disease than from transmission by mechanical inoculation?
6. How do nepoviruses and cryptic viruses infect the gametes?
7. How many viral particles are actually needed for a successful infection?
8. Are there plant viruses that specifically target the chloroplasts?
9. How do plant viruses affect the photosynthetic processes?
10. How does the susceptibility to infection depend on light intensity?
11. How are viruses transmitted to plants by beetles?
12. What role does gene silencing play in cross-protection?
13. How are viruses used to induce sequence-specific suppression of gene expression?
14. How does post-transcriptional gene silencing (PTGS) affect virus infection? How is PTGS related to transgenic resistance?
15. What factors are responsible for the differences in symptoms caused by different strains of a plant virus?
16. Do plant viruses inhibit programmed cell death?
17. Is there any evidence for the existence of `viral genes' whose role is only in the induction of disease?
18. What are the nature of the mosaic patterns and symptoms?
19. How does viral infection affect ethylene production?
20. What are the mechanisms by which virus infection stunts growth?
21. Do plant viruses suppress the expression of genes that compete with it and enhance the expression of those that help it?
22. How do viruses move from the external phloem to the internal phloem?
23. What are the effects of viruses on plant metabolism and can the metabolism be engineered by the use of viruses?
24. What is the nature of asymmetric infection?
25. What is the connection between the triple gene block and viral movement from cell to cell?
26. What experimental methods are used to study virus movement?
27. What is the nature of subliminal infection?
28. What are the three types of viral replication?
29. In terms of field release of transgenic plants, what risks are there in the recombination between episomal and transgenic viral sequences?
30. What are the mechanisms for RNA recombination?
31 What is the difference between mutation frequency and mutation rate?
32. What proteins are involved in the replication of viral RNA?
33. How many different species of plant viruses are there?
34. What is the oldest recorded virus?
35. What species of plants have never been susceptible to viral infection?
36. Does viral infection always cause disease in the infected plant?
37. Can two viruses, each of which is deleterious to the plant, be combined to form a virus that is not?
38. Can viral infection ever induce growth in the infected plant?
39. For plants having nectar guides and infected by a virus, does this infection have an effect on the behavior of the honeybees that access the plant?
40. Why does on species of virus infect one plant species but not another?
41. How can a virus be blocked from infecting the plant?
42. How long can a virus remain in pollen or seed before it loses its power to infect?
43. Can two different viruses infecting the same plant result in an easier infection for both than each one acting alone?
44. Why do plant viruses have the shapes that they do?
45. How many genes do plant viruses have?
46. Why are cell recognition proteins not necessary for plant viruses?
47. What strategies do viruses use to overcome eukaryotic translation constraints?
48. What is ribosome shunting?
49. What is cap-snatching?
50. Where does the virus get its energy to carry out its functions?
51. What advantages are there for viruses to replicate in their insect vectors?
52. What mechanisms do plant viruses use for RNA recombination?

Mathews Plant Virology was my introduction to both plants as well as viruses as an undergrad. I did not appreciate it for its wealth of knowledge back then because it was so different from the traditional undergraduate text book. The book assumes the reader has a preliminary understanding of many topics in biology, and furthermore rather than building on principles like the majority of undergrad text books does, it simply presents an encyclopedic amount of information on plant viruses. I loathed this book at the time, as did everyone in my class. We hated this book, but I hated this book with a passion. i hated it because I had looked forward to formally studying virology for years. I wanted the familiar undergrad text book I was used to, the one constructed in a way that I never had to go to class and I could still read it and understand. This book was not it.

That same semester I began my first journey into research. My goal was simple: to sequence the plant virus CCMV. This took me about one year, and didn't require that I actually knew all that much about plant viruses. I knew enough to get by, to learn the techniques in the lab, and then complete my project.

As I progressed as a student, I realized my questions about plant virology could not be curbed. As I learned more about science and biology in general, I wanted to know specifics. By the time I made it to graduate school, I wanted to know the specifics that I could not find within those traditional undergraduate text books. Finally I realized the importance of a book like Mathews Plant Virology. This book was so detailed, so to the point, every sentence filled with useful information, no filler. This was the book I wanted, and I realized I wished every text book had been written in this format. If I had research questions, instead of trying to piece together information like I had to when referencing typical books, I could the answers here.

Anyway this is getting long and boring but the point is, if this is an intro course, you might find yourself bogged down by this book. It is different from most books you have encountered. But if you really want to learn about plant virology, I dare you to see this book for what it is: a comprehensive wealth of knowledge on the subject. Stick with it, and you will soon see its real value. And to a researcher, a book like this is a life saver.