Guest Editors
Xifeng Wang
State Key Laboratory for Biology of Plant Diseases and Insect Pests-Institute of Plant Protection, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences,
Dr. Xifeng Wang received his PhD in Plant Pathology from the School of Graduated Students, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences in 1998, where he studied the transmission mechanism of barley yellow dwarf viruses by cereal aphids. Since then, he has been a Principal Investigator and team leader at the State Key Laboratory for Biology of Plant Diseases and Insect Pests, Institute of Plant Protection, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences. His research focuses on the transmission mechanisms of rice and wheat viruses by insect vectors (planthopper and aphids), epidemics and management of cereal viral diseases, and new virus identification in insects and plants. Now, he is a Councillor of International Society for Plant Pathology (ISPP) and Vice President of the Chinese Society of Plant Pathology (2010-2018).
Feng Cui
Chinese Academy of Sciences, Institute of Zoology
Dr. Feng Cui obtained her PhD degree in Zoology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) in 2006. She went on to be promoted to a professorship at the Institute of Zoology, CAS, and Principal Investigator of the Genomics of Vector Insect and Virus Group in 2017. Her main research direction focuses on clarifying the molecular mechanisms of vector insects transmitting plant viruses, using small brown planthopper and rice stripe virus models. This includes protein-protein interactions between viruses and insects, variation of viral genomes during transmission, and the functions of saliva proteins in viral transmission. Dr. Cui has published more than 50 papers in international peer-reviewed journals, such as Protein & Cell, eLife, New Phytologist, and mBio. She also serves as a Council member and Director of the Committee of Insect Comparative Immunology and Interactions for the Entomological Society of China.
Collection Overview
Arboviruses have caused serious harm to human health and agricultural production. Arthropods have played an important role in the process of viral epidemics, as they transmit viruses to animal or plant hosts through biting or feeding after a certain latency period. Arbo-borne animal virus diseases have a remarkable characteristics of zoonosis, such as fast transmission, wide epidemic range, hidden infection mode, and difficult prediction of epidemic trend, which severely threatens the public health. Insect-borne plant viruses can be transmitted by different mechanisms, such as host transformation, mixed infection, and long-distance transmission etc., making these diseases more prevalant. Even though plant viruses have caused indirect loss through insect outbreak, excessive use of chemical pesticides potentially leads to insect resistance, environmental pollution, and pesticide residues, which seriously affects the environment and food safety. This collection focuses on methods related to viral replication and transmission mechanisms in vector insects based on virus-insect interactions, including viral protein-insect protein interactions, insect microbe-virus interactions, and interactions between newly identified insect viruses and arboviruses. Furthermore, research about mechanisms and regulations of the disease process, outbreak and control of disease, design of new regulatory agents, and vaccines with strong target and ecological safety, which will provide theoretical basis and technical support for the prevention and control of arboviruses, can be contributed to this collection. Additionally, contributions on the development of molecular biology and omics research, as well as the penetration and intersection of microbiology and macrobiology techniques, will provide a reference model for the molecular mechanisms of multiple interactions, can be discussed here.
