Viral suppressors of RNA silencing in vascular plants also interfere with the development of the bryophyte Physcomitrella patens

Viral silencing suppressor proteins P19 from tomato bushy stunt virus and 2b from cucumber mosaic virus are known to silence RNAi-based anti-viral defense in vascular plants upon infection. In order to elucidate the response of the bryophyte Physcomitrella patens, we transformed the moss with beta-estradiol inducible expression cassettes of the genes encoding P19 or 2b and subsequently performed mRNA and sRNA sequencing at specific timepoints after inducing the expression.