Shchelkanov M.YU., Kakareka N.N., Volkov YU.G., Tolkach V.F.
Year: 2022ISBN: 978-5-7444-5353-4
In 2022, the 130th anniversary of virology as a science and the 80th anniversary of the Laboratory of Virology in the Institute of Biology and Soil Sciences (IBSS) (since 2017 – the Federal Scientific Center for Biodiversity of Terrestrial Biota of East Asia (FSCB)) of the Far Eastern Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences will be celebrated. The development of phytovirus research in the Far East has not only a regional aspect, but is a historically established driver of all virology. And although the idea of the Far East as a kind of "cradle" of the concept of natural foci of infectious diseases, which was formed in the process of studying Tick-borne encephalitis virus (Amarillovirales: Flaviviridae, Flavivirus), has received the greatest fame, it is the phytovirological direction of the activity of Far Eastern scientists that represents a continuous line of succession within the framework of the national virological school. The "Eastern vector" of Russian phytovirology allowed maintaining a continuous line of scientific continuity going back to D.I. Ivanovsky, who discovered the first tobacco mosaic virus in 1892. Until the middle of the last century it was phytovirology that formed the basic concepts of virology. Laboratory of Virology of the IBSS FEB RAS was one of its main structural elements from the moment the Institute was founded until the beginning of the 1990s's "perestroika" when it was necessary to concentrate the depleted resources in the most promising areas sacrificing – among other things – the resource-intensive classical phytovirology, which once constituted the glory and pride of Far Eastern science. This review is devoted to the description of the development of phytovirology in Russia starting with D.I. Ivanovsky and the formation of the Far Eastern school of virologists and plant pathophysiologists, the founder of which was V.G. Reifman. The authors invite readers to recall with them the names of scientists who have left the most noticeable trace in the field of studying the species diversity of phytoviruses in natural and agrocenoses in the south of the Russian Far East, the development indicator plant method, physicochemical and serological identification, the search for natural reservoirs and vectors of phytoviruses, the ecology of regional viral variants, the development of approaches to the widespread introduction of virus-free crop production. Primorye phytovirologists celebrate the next anniversary of the FSCB FEB RAS and their Laboratory in difficult conditions: having given a powerful impetus to the development of a number of technological platforms phytovirology has often been considered today either as diagnostic and methodological support of the same technologies or as an element of a system of phytosanitary measures. However, underestimation of the potential of phytovirology should be considered as a temporary phenomenon and the requirements of ensuring global biological safety, which are increasingly facing humanity, cannot be implemented outside the paradigm of synthetic virology including complex combination of the principles of all its sections. The Laboratory of Virology of the Federal Research Center for Biodiversity of the Far Eastern Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences is the only academic team in the Asian part of Russia that has preserved the traditions of the national phytovirus school and represents a natural point of growth of this most important scientific direction.
