Viruses in Plants

Plant Viruses

Plant viruses are viruses affecting plants. They are less well known than bacteril and animal viruses, even though viruses were originally identified and isolated from tobacco plants. Plant viruses infect many food crops, including corn, beans, tobacco and the most popular in the world, potatoes, viruses resulting billions of dollars in losses each year. Viruses of plants are introduced into plant cells either through abrasions of the cell wall or by plant parasites such as nematodes and aphids.

The first virus to be discovered was Tobacco mosaic virus (TMV). This and other viruses cause an estimated US$60 billion loss in crop yields worldwide each year. The TMV viruses are most frequently used as research in plant molecular biology today.


There are over 2000 known viruses and about 1/4 of these known viruses cause diseases in plants. Plant viruses are grouped into 73 genera and 49 families.