Abstract
The ability to transform plant genomes with alien genetic material by the Agrobacterium Ti plasmid system1 has made it possible to test whether plant resistance to viruses can be increased by incorporating virus-related nucleotide sequences into the nuclear DNA of the host. We have used this approach2 with a satellite RNA of cucumber mosaic virus (CMV) that is replicated only in CMV-infected cells3 and attenuates the symptoms induced by CMV4,5. Tobacco plants transformed with a DNA copy of this satellite RNA produce large amounts of the satellite RNA on infection with a satellite-free inoculum of CMV and, as a result, the satellite becomes transmissible as a component of the virus culture2. We report here that CMV replication is greatly decreased and symptom development largely suppressed in these transgenic plants and their sexual progeny, and that tomato aspermy virus (TAV), which is closely related to CMV, likewise induces satellite RNA synthesis accompanied by symptom suppression but with little or no decrease in TAV genome synthesis. These effects indicate that symptom suppression does not necessarily depend on a decrease in virus replication and that genetically engineered protection by virus satellite nucleic acid is a feasible strategy for enhancing the virus resistance of crop plants.
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References
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Harrison, B., Mayo, M. & Baulcombe, D. Virus resistance in transgenic plants that express cucumber mosaic virus satellite RNA. Nature 328, 799–802 (1987). https://doi.org/10.1038/328799a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/328799a0
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