title: Broad resistance to tospoviruses in transgenic tobacco plants expressing three tospoviral nucleoprotein gene sequences.
abstract: Transgenic tobacco plants have been obtained expressing nucleoprotein (N) gene sequences of three different tospoviruses known to affect vegetable crops: tomato spotted wilt virus (TSWV), tomato chlorotic spot virus (TCSV), and groundnut ringspot virus (GRSV). The chimeric plant transformation vector used comprised the three viral N gene sequences, each with a copy of the CaMV 35S promoter and the nos terminator. Despite the high levels of homology between the different N gene sequences (74-82%) and the presence of repeated promoter and terminator sequences in this construct, unrearranged copies of this triple N gene construct were stably maintained in both Escherichia coli and Agrobacterium tumefaciens plasmids used during the cloning process, as well as in several generations of transgenic tobacco plants. A transgenic tobacco line was obtained that exhibited high levels of resistance to all three tospoviruses, showing the possibility of producing transgenic plants with a broad resistance to tospoviruses by introducing tandemly cloned viral N gene sequences. DNA analysis of this transgenic plant line shows that the multivirus resistance trait is confined to a single genetic locus, which is very convenient for further breeding purposes.
authors.affiliation: Department of Virology, Wageningen Agricultural University, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Prins
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: de Haan
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Luyten
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: van Veller
authors.forename: M Q
authors.initials: MQ
authors.lastname: van Grinsven
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Goldbach
mesh_terms: D016960:Agrobacterium tumefaciens / Q000235:genetics; D002213:Capsid / Q000235:genetics*; D003001:Cloning, Molecular; D004926:Escherichia coli / Q000235:genetics; D015870:Gene Expression; D005814:Genes, Viral; D005822:Genetic Vectors; D030821:Plants, Genetically Modified; D010947:Plants, Toxic; D010957:Plasmids / Q000235:genetics; D014026:Nicotiana / Q000821:virology*; D017865:Tospovirus / Q000235:genetics* / Q000472:pathogenicity; D014170:Transformation, Genetic; D014758:Viral Core Proteins / Q000235:genetics*; D014774:Virulence / Q000235:genetics
chemical_list: D014758:Viral Core Proteins