Environmental conditions are an important factor driving pathogens’ evolution. Here, we explore the effects of drought stress in plant virus evolution. We evolved turnip mosaic potyvirus in well-watered and drought conditions in Arabidopsis thaliana accessions that differ in their response to virus infection. Virus adaptation occurred in all accessions independently of watering status. Drought-evolved viruses conferred a significantly higher drought tolerance to infected plants. By contrast, nonsignificant increases in tolerance were observed in plants infected with viruses evolved under standard watering. The magnitude of this effect was dependent on the plant accessions. Differences in tolerance were correlated to alterations in the expression of host genes, some involved in regulation of the circadian clock, as well as in deep changes in the balance of phytohormones regulating defense and growth signaling pathways. Our results show that viruses can promote host survival in situations of abiotic stress, with the magnitude of such benefit being a selectable trait. Significance Viruses are seen as selfish pathogens that harm their hosts to ensure their own survival. However, metagenomic studies are drawing a new picture in which viruses are present everywhere and not always associated to diseases. A classic observation in plant pathology is that the outcome of infection depends on environmental conditions. Here, using experimental evolution, we show that the relationship between a plant virus and its natural host can evolve from pathogenic to mutualistic under severe drought conditions. While viral strains evolved in normal watering conditions increased their virulence, drought-evolved viral strains confer plants with greater resistance to drought. We show that this transition to mutualism depends on a complex reorganization of hormone-induced signaling pathways and changes in gene expression.

We present a combination of light-sheet excitation and two-dimensional fluorescence intensity ratio (FIR) measurements as a simple and promising technique for three-dimensional temperature mapping. The feasibility of this approach is demonstrated with samples fabricated with sodium yttrium fluoride nanoparticles co-doped with rare-earth ytterbium and erbium ions (NaYF₄:Yb³⁺/Er³⁺) incorporated into polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) as a host material. In addition, we also evaluate the technique using lipid-coated NaYF₄:Yb³⁺/Er³⁺ nanoparticles immersed in agar. The composite materials show upconverted (UC) fluorescence bands when excited by a 980 nm near-infrared laser light-sheet. Using a single CMOS camera and a pair of interferometric optical filters to specifically image the two thermally-coupled bands (at 525 and 550 nm), the two-dimensional FIR and, hence, the temperature map can be readily obtained. The proposed method can take optically sectioned (confocal-like) images with good optical resolution over relatively large samples (up to the millimetric scale) for further 3D temperature reconstruction.

Upconversion nanoparticles (UCNPs) are well-known for their high efficiency, photostability, near-infrared excitation, and ability to estimate temperature through ratiometric imaging of two thermally coupled fluorescence bands. This work demonstrates the feasibility of volumetric temperature mapping in internal biological systems using light-sheet fluorescence microscopy and lipid-coated UCNPs as nanothermometry markers. This approach enables real-time thermal mapping with both high spatial and temporal resolution at the cellular and subcellular levels. To validate the method, we performed 3D temperature imaging on fixed Caenorhabditis elegans ( C. elegans ) after UCNP ingestion. The proposed technique represents a cutting-edge method for accurate 3D analysis of temperature-driven biological processes. It holds significant potential for applications in living organisms, offering a non-invasive tool to monitor intracellular and organ-specific temperature dynamics.