Tomato leaf curl New Delhi virus (ToLCNDV) encoded AC2 associates with host mirnas by directly interacting with AGO1

Tomato leaf curl New Delhi virus (ToLCNDV; Family: Geminiviridae, Genus: Begomovirus) infecting tomato and causes severe yield loss (~40% to 90%) (Saikia and Muniyappa, 1989). This family of viruses may contain monopartite (DNA-A) or bipartite (DNA-A and DNA-B) circular ssDNA genomes. The DNA-A component encodes six open reading frames (ORFs) namely AC1, AC2, AC3, AC4, AV1 and AV2 while, only two proteins BC1 and BV1 are encoded by DNA-B component (Dry et al, 1993; Padidam et al, 1995). AC2 encodes for a 15 kDa protein that functions as a pathogenicity factor and acts as an RSS (Voinnet et al, 1999; Kumar et al, 2014; Kumar et al, 2015).