Apple stem grooving capillovirus: pliant pathogen and its potential as a tool in functional genomics and effective disease management

Capilloviruses represents an important genus of the family Betaflexiviridae and are plant infecting pathogens. They include several agriculturally important viruses encompassing RNA genomes. Apple stem grooving virus (ASGV) is an important virus of this genus. In recent years, reports are accumulating about its expanding host range breadth (HRB) to affect various other plant species. Increased multiple host adaptability of ASGV could be associated with factors like genetic variability, recombination, genome expression strategy, virus transmission and infection biology. The evolution in the viral genome is driving this virus to increased genome variability resulting in infection of different hosts. This review article focuses on recent advances made in understanding ASGV genome biology and possible disease mechanism that may help unravel the complexities of this viral infection conferring multiple host adaptability. Contrarily, this virus also has an immense potential to be used as vector to unveil viral pathogenicity mechanism, its use as Virus Induced Gene Silencing (VIGS)/Virus-Induced Genome Editing (VIGE) vector, and for the enhancement of plant resistance. These features may allow deciphering functional genomics of important crops, enhancement of plant disease resistance ability, ultimately benefiting agriculture, has also been discussed.