Linda Hanley-Bowdoin

About

Linda Hanley-Bowdoin is the William Neal Reynolds Distinguished Professor in the Department of Plant and Microbial Biology at North Carolina State University. Her research focuses on plant and microbial biology, particularly on geminiviruses, a large family of plant viruses with circular, single-stranded DNA genomes that replicate through double-stranded intermediates. Her work investigates how geminiviruses depend on host DNA polymerases to replicate and how they replicate in differentiated plant cells that lack detectable levels of these host factors. She is involved in developing resistance strategies against these viruses by working on peptide aptamers and trans-dominant negative mutants to interfere with viral replication, collaborating with researchers in Africa and Asia to implement these technologies in key crops. Additionally, her research extends to characterizing plant origins of replication, understanding their relationship to genome structure, DNA methylation, histone modifications, and transcriptional activity. Her contributions include advancing knowledge of DNA replication and transcription in plants, with a focus on virus-host interactions, genome organization, and resistance mechanisms.

Selected publications

• A calmodulin-binding transcription factor links calcium signaling to antiviral RNAi defense in plants

  Cell Host & Microbe · 2021-08-04 · 118 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Early detection of plant virus infection using multispectral imaging and spatial–spectral machine learning

  Scientific Reports · 2022-02-24 · 45 citations

  articleOpen access

  Cassava brown streak disease (CBSD) is an emerging viral disease that can greatly reduce cassava productivity, while causing only mild aerial symptoms that develop late in infection. Early detection of CBSD enables better crop management and intervention. Current techniques require laboratory equipment and are labour intensive and often inaccurate. We have developed a handheld active multispectral imaging (A-MSI) device combined with machine learning for early detection of CBSD in real-time. The…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Population diversity of cassava mosaic begomoviruses increases over the course of serial vegetative propagation

  Journal of General Virology · 2021-07-26 · 27 citations

  articleOpen access

  Cassava mosaic disease (CMD) represents a serious threat to cassava, a major root crop for more than 300 million Africans. CMD is caused by single-stranded DNA begomoviruses that evolve rapidly, making it challenging to develop durable disease resistance. In addition to the evolutionary forces of mutation, recombination and reassortment, factors such as climate, agriculture practices and the presence of DNA satellites may impact viral diversity. To gain insight into the factors that alter and sh…

  PublisherDOI

• Vector acquisition and co-inoculation of two plant viruses influences transmission, infection, and replication in new hosts

  Scientific Reports · 2022-11-27 · 24 citations

  articleOpen access

  This study investigated the role of vector acquisition and transmission on the propagation of single and co-infections of tomato yellow leaf curl virus (TYLCV,) and tomato mottle virus (ToMoV) (Family: Geminiviridae, Genus: Begomovirus) by the whitefly vector Bemisia tabaci MEAM1 (Gennadius) in tomato. The aim of this research was to determine if the manner in which viruses are co-acquired and co-transmitted changes the probability of acquisition, transmission and new host infections. Whiteflies…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• An experimental strategy for preparing circular ssDNA virus genomes for next-generation sequencing

  Journal of Virological Methods · 2021 · 22 citations

  Senior author

  The ability of begomoviruses to evolve rapidly threatens many crops and underscores the importance of detecting these viruses quickly and to understand their genome diversity. This study presents an improved protocol for the enhanced amplification and enrichment of begomovirus DNA for use in next generation sequencing of the viral genomes. An enhanced rolling circle amplification (RCA) method using EquiPhi29 polymerase was combined with size selection to generate a cost-effective, short-read seq…

  PublisherDOI

Awards & honors

• William Neal Reynolds Distinguished Professor

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