About

Vitaly Citovsky is a SUNY Distinguished Professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Cell Biology at Stony Brook University. His research focuses on three main projects: the genetic transformation of plant cells by Agrobacterium, the intercellular transport of plant viruses and plant cell proteins, and the remodeling of plant chromatin by histone modifications. His work with Agrobacterium involves identifying and characterizing cellular systems such as nuclear import machinery, proteolysis machinery, and DNA repair mechanisms that are involved in the nuclear transport and integration of T-DNA, as well as studying bacterial effectors that interact with these plant systems to subvert host defenses. He has demonstrated that this plant pathogen can genetically transform human cells, highlighting the evolutionarily conserved nature of these processes. In the area of plant intercellular transport, Citovsky's research has uncovered mechanisms by which viral genomes move between cells via subviral complexes and the cellular proteins that regulate this process, particularly focusing on plasmodesmata and callose sphincters. His chromatin remodeling studies aim to elucidate the structure, composition, and function of plant corepressor complexes involved in histone modifications, which regulate gene expression during plant development and morphogenesis. Throughout his career, Citovsky has contributed significantly to understanding the molecular interactions involved in plant-pathogen interactions, gene transfer, and gene regulation, with numerous publications and patents to his name.

Research topics

• Biology
• Genetics
• Computer Science
• Cell biology
• Computational biology
• Virology

Selected publications

• Attenuation of cell-cell movement of tobamoviruses by the C-terminal GPI signal peptide of arabinogalactan protein FLA8

  Current Biology · 2026-04-21

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• PDLP5, a plasmodesmata permeability regulator, can traffic between plant cells

  npj Science of Plants · 2025-07-01 · 1 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Bioimaging of Element Abundance and Distribution in Response to Boron Availability Extremes

  2025-01-01

  articleOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• The roles of movement and coat proteins in the transport of tobamoviruses between plant cells

  Frontiers in Plant Science · 2025-04-17 · 5 citations

  reviewOpen accessSenior author

  species has been on the rise in recent years, and currently, this genus includes 47 viruses. Tobamoviruses are transmitted mainly by mechanical contact, such as physical touching by hands or agricultural tools; and some are also transmitted on seeds, or through pollinator insects. The tobamoviral genome encodes proteins that have evolved to fulfill the main conceptual task of the viral infection cycle - the spread of the invading virus throughout the host plant cells, tissues, and organs. Here, we discuss this aspect of the infection cycle of tobamoviruses, focusing on the advances in our understanding of the local, i.e., cell-to-cell, and systemic, i.e., organ-to-organ, virus movement, and the viral and host plant determinants of these processes. Specifically, we spotlight two viral proteins-the movement protein (MP) and the coat protein (CP), which are directly involved in the local and systemic spread of tobamoviruses-with respect to their phylogeny, activities during viral movement, and interactions with the host determinants of the movement process.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Rhizobium tropici biopolymer enhances lateral root formation in agar-grown Arabidopsis

  Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications · 2025-05-29 · 1 citations

  articleCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Crown Galls Tumors

  Elsevier eBooks · 2024-01-01

  book-chapterSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Agrobacterium virulence factors induce the expression of host DNA repair-related genes without promoting major genomic damage

  Scientific Reports · 2024-10-17 · 3 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  This study aimed to investigate whether the plant DNA damage levels and DNA damage response (DDR) are regulated during Agrobacterium infection and potentially manipulated by Agrobacterium to facilitate T-DNA integration. We investigated the plant genomic response to Agrobacterium infection by measuring gamma H2AX levels, which reflect the levels of double-strand DNA breaks (DSBs), and by characterizing transcription of three major DNA repair marker genes NAC82, KU70, and AGO2. These experiments revealed that, globally, Agrobacterium infection did not result in a major increase in DSB content in the host genome. The transcription of the DNA damage repair genes, on the other hand, was elevated upon the wild-type Agrobacterium infection. This transcriptional outcome was largely negated by a mutation in the bacterial virB5 gene which encodes the virulence (Vir) protein B5, a minor component of Agrobacterium pilus necessary for the translocation of Vir effector proteins into the host cell, suggesting that the transcriptional activation of the cellular DNA damage repair machinery requires the transport into the host cell of the Agrobacterium effectors, i.e., the VirD2, VirD5, VirE2, VirE3, and VirF proteins. Most likely, a combination of several of these Vir effectors is required to activate the host DNA repair as their individual loss- or gain-of-function mutants did not significantly affect this process.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Confocal Microscopy Analysis of Protein Sorting to Plasmodesmata in <i>Nicotiana benthamiana</i>

  Journal of Visualized Experiments · 2024-11-01

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Plasmodesmata are membranous nanopores that connect the cytoplasm of adjacent plant cells and enable the cell-to-cell trafficking of nutrients, macromolecules, as well as invading viruses. Plasmodesmata play fundamental roles in the regulation of intercellular communication, contributing to plant development, environmental responses, and interactions with viral pathogens. Discovering plasmodesmal localization of plant or viral proteins could provide useful functional information about the protein and is important for understanding the mechanisms of plant-virus interactions. To facilitate these studies, we describe a protocol for confocal microscopy-based analysis of different plasmodesmal targeting proteins to select the best plasmodesmal marker for studying the virus-plasmodesmata interactions or plasmodesmal transport. Specifically, the analyses of these events are illustrated using the cell-to-cell movement protein (MP) of the Turnip vein-clearing virus (TVCV), the Arabidopsis Plasmodesmata-Localized Protein 5 (PDLP5) and Plasmodesmata Callose-Binding Protein 1 (PDCB1). The protein plasmodesmal localization data are analyzed in parallel with the global visualization of plasmodesmata using aniline blue staining of the sampled tissues. These approaches can be easily adapted to analyze the plasmodesmal localization of any cellular or pathogen proteins in planta.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Faculty Opinions recommendation of Facilitation of symplastic effector protein mobility by paired effectors is conserved in different classes of fungal pathogens.

  Faculty Opinions – Post-Publication Peer Review of the Biomedical Literature · 2023-11-28

  dataset1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Faculty Opinions recommendation of Precise integration of large DNA sequences in plant genomes using PrimeRoot editors.

  Faculty Opinions – Post-Publication Peer Review of the Biomedical Literature · 2023-06-29

  dataset1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• Pathways for Colonization of Plant Genome by Agrobacterium

  NSF · $480k · 2018–2023

• Control of Macromolecular Traffic Through Plasmodesmata

  NIH · $7.2M · 1994–2022

• Chromatin-modifying Co-repressor Complexes in Plants

  NSF · $458k · 2008–2012

• Role of histone modifying enzymes in regulating alternate active versus silent gene expression in plants

  NSF · $747k · 2019–2025

• The Plant KDM1C Histone Demethylase Repressor Complex

  NSF · $867k · 2011–2017

Frequent coauthors

• Benoît Lacroix

  Stony Brook University

  352 shared

• Alexander Krichevsky

  111 shared

• Shimpei Magori

  Stony Brook University

  101 shared

• Tzvi Tzfira

  Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

  96 shared

• Renhong Wu

  Southwest University

  94 shared

• Shoko Ueki

  80 shared

• Ido Keren

  Stony Brook University

  69 shared

• Phu‐Tri Tran

  Flagship Pioneering (United States)

  64 shared