Аннотация:Plasmodesmata (PD) in intact mature leaves are limited in their ability to pass macromolecules into neighbouring cells. This is believed to be due to the deposition of the β-1,3-glucan callose in the apoplast that surrounds the PD, which reduces the aperture of the PD and the size of the molecules that can freely pass through them. This important process of PD control under stress conditions is probably determined by a set of protein factors, which are regulated not only at the level of gene transcription but also at the stage of mRNA translation. Recently, we identified a pathogenesis-related gene encoding the Kunitz peptidase inhibitor (KPI)-like protein (KPILP) in plants of the Solanaceae family. This is the first example of the matryoshka gene with a nested alternative open reading frame controlling maternal gene expression in stress conditions. Here, we investigated the possible participation of Nicotiana benthamiana KPILP (NbKPILP) in the stress-induced increase of PD gating. We showed that the NbKPILP-specific signal sequence is responsible for its cell wall (CW) localization. GFP-tagged full-length NbKPILP displayed the typical PD-specific punctate accumulation and co-localized with the mRFP-tagged Tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) movement protein (MP). The deletion analysis allowed us to determine the PD localization signal in the N-terminal half of NbKPILP. Experiments with a vector encoding two tandem copies of green fluorescent protein (2xGFP) as a tracer of cell-to-cell movement showed the capacity of NbKPILP to dilate the PD. This property of NbKPILP was also confirmed in the complementation experiments whereby NbKPILP compensated in trans loss of the MPTMV gating function. An infectious copy of crTMV with a frameshift mutation in the MP gene [crTMV(MPfs):GFP], which lacks the ability to move from cell to cell in the presence of NbKPILP, formed multicellular GFP-expressing clusters. We concluded that NbKPILP is a CW-localized protein that participates in mature PD gating control under stress conditions. This study was performed with financial support from the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (project No. 17-29-08012).