title: A novel co-delivery system consisting of a Tomato bushy stunt virus and a defective interfering RNA for studying gene silencing.
abstract: Virus induced gene silencing (VIGS) and suppression are RNA-specific defense and counter-defense circuits in plant-virus interactions. These phenomena have been investigated extensively with an Agrobacterium-mediated transient expression system. In this study, a virus-based transient expression system was developed to study these phenomena. A Tomato bushy stunt virus (TBSV) viral vector with an inactivated P19 suppressor gene, referred to as pHST2-14, was chosen to express the P1 of Tobacco etch virus (TEV). TEV P1 is a component of a well-characterized VIGS suppressor, TEV P1/HC-Pro protein. A TBSV defective interfering RNA (DI) that contains the 3' proximal portion of a green fluorescence protein (GFP) gene, DI-P, was used as a silencing inducer of the homologous GFP gene on GFP transgenic Nicotiana benthamiana (NbGFP) plants. The TEV P1 gene was inserted into pHST2-14 to generate TBSV-P1. Transcripts of TBSV-P1 were then mixed with DI-P transcripts and inoculated onto NbGFP plants. DI-P consistently accumulated in NbGFP plants that were inoculated with TBSV-P1 and DI-P, and efficiently induced silencing of GFP transgene. These results demonstrate that a TBSV-based co-delivery system can provide a new alternative tool to investigate gene silencing and its influence by a TBSV-expressed foreign protein. It also can be used to elucidate functions of endogenous genes in plants.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, Liaoning Normal University, Dalian, Liaoning 116029, China.
authors.forename: Hesheng
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Hou
authors.forename: Wenping
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Qiu
mesh_terms: D003673:Defective Viruses; D010450:Endopeptidases / Q000096:biosynthesis / Q000235:genetics; D020868:Gene Silencing; D005822:Genetic Vectors; D049452:Green Fluorescent Proteins; D008164:Luminescent Proteins / Q000235:genetics; D030821:Plants, Genetically Modified; D034622:RNA Interference; D012367:RNA, Viral / Q000235:genetics; D014026:Nicotiana / Q000235:genetics*; D017864:Tombusvirus / Q000235:genetics*
chemical_list: D008164:Luminescent Proteins; D012367:RNA, Viral; D049452:Green Fluorescent Proteins; D010450:Endopeptidases; C099488:TEV protease