Mini-Review: General aspects of viruses in plants

Plant viruses are infective particles, considered obligate intracellular parasites. They are generally composed of single-stranded positive ribonucleic acid (RNA) and only in a few cases of single or double-stranded deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). These are introduced into the plant cell through wounds caused by physical damage due to the environment or by the action of vectors, among the vectors are several species of insects, mites, nematodes and certain fungi, The interaction between viruses and plants adversely affects the morphology and physiology of the host, causing diseases.
It has been estimated that plant viruses can cause an annual loss of up to 50 billion euros worldwide, a situation that may be worsened by recent climate change events and associated changes in disease epidemiology. The lack of curative measures for virus infections has prompted the use of risk reduction measures, which have included exclusion, avoidance, and eradication techniques, along with vector management practices. Also, the advent of next-generation sequencing technologies has great potential for detecting unknown viruses.