Role of betasatellites in interaction of viruses with plants

Betasatellites, as begomovirus-dependent small circular single-stranded DNAs, are multifunctional agents that trigger disease symptoms, suppress gene silencing pathways and also interact with various cellular pathways and factors. These subviral elements have a conserved genome organization that encodes only a functional open reading frame on the complementary sense strand βC1. The encoded beta satellite protein affects only the helper begomovirus cycle factor. The small size with a strong promoter sequence and the ability to replace βC1 with foreign genes made beta satellites suspected tools for the investigation of functional genes. As we expand our knowledge of begomovirus / beta satellite complexes and their interactions with host plants, we develop management approaches for the expansion of begomoviral destructive diseases.