Editing Plant virus (section)

=== Directly from plant to humans ===

There is tenuous evidence that a virus common to peppers, the [[Pepper mild mottle virus|Pepper Mild Mottle Virus]] (PMMoV) may have moved on to infect humans.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Aguado-García |first1=Yarenci |last2=Taboada |first2=Blanca |last3=Morán |first3=Patricia |last4=Rivera-Gutiérrez |first4=Xaira |last5=Serrano-Vázquez |first5=Angélica |last6=Iša |first6=Pavel |last7=Rojas-Velázquez |first7=Liliana |last8=Pérez-Juárez |first8=Horacio |last9=López |first9=Susana |last10=Torres |first10=Javier |last11=Ximénez |first11=Cecilia |last12=Arias |first12=Carlos F. |title=Tobamoviruses can be frequently present in the oropharynx and gut of infants during their first year of life |journal=Scientific Reports |date=12 August 2020 |volume=10 |issue=1 |page=13595 |doi=10.1038/s41598-020-70684-w|pmid=32788688 |pmc=7423923 |bibcode=2020NatSR..1013595A }}</ref> This is a rare and unlikely event as, to enter a cell and replicate, a virus must "bind to a receptor on its surface, and a plant virus would be highly unlikely to recognize a receptor on a human cell. One possibility is that the virus does not infect human cells directly. Instead, the naked viral RNA may alter the function of the cells through a mechanism similar to [[RNA interference]], in which the presence of certain RNA sequences can turn genes on and off," according to Virologist Robert Garry.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Evidence of First Virus That Moves from Plants to Humans |date=15 April 2010 |publisher=TechVert |url=http://techvert.com/science/evidence-virus-moves-from-plants-to-humans/ |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100422115442/http://techvert.com/science/evidence-virus-moves-from-plants-to-humans/ |archive-date=22 April 2010}}</ref>