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Systemic silencing signal(s)

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Abstract

Grafting experiments have revealed that transgenic plants that undergo co-suppression of homologous transgenes and endogenous genes or PTGS of exogenous transgenes produce a sequence-specific systemic silencing signal that is able to propagate from cell to cell and at long distance. Similarly, infection of transgenic plants by viruses that carry (part of) a transgene sequence results in global silencing (VIGS) of the integrated transgenes although viral infection is localized. Systemic PTGS and VIGS strongly resemble recovery from virus infection in non-transgenic plants, leading to protection against secondary infection in newly emerging leaves and PTGS of transiently expressed homologous transgenes. The sequence-specific PTGS signal is probably a transgene product (for example, aberrant RNA) or a secondary product (for example, RNA molecules produced by an RNA-dependent RNA polymerase with transgene RNA as a matrix) that mimics the type of viral RNA that is targeted for degradation by cellular defence. Whether some particular cases of transgene TGS could also rely on the production of such a mobile molecule is discussed.

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  1. Laboratoire de Biologie Cellulaire, INRA, 78026, Versailles Cedex, France

    Mathilde Fagard & Hervé Vaucheret

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  1. Mathilde Fagard
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  2. Hervé Vaucheret
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Fagard, M., Vaucheret, H. Systemic silencing signal(s). Plant Mol Biol 43, 285–293 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1006404016494

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