Integrity of nonviral fragments in recombinant Tomato bushy stunt virus and defective interfering RNA is influenced by silencing and the type of inserts.
Recombinant plant viruses have the propensity to remove foreign inserts during replication. This process is virus-specific and occurs in a host-dependent manner. In the present study, we investigated the integrity of foreign inserts in recombinant plant viruses using a model system consisting of Tomato bushy stunt virus (TBSV) and its defective interfering RNA (DI). These were tested in Nicotiana benthamiana plants that were either wild type or transgenic for the green fluorescent protein (GFP) gene. GFP-derived inserts were retained in the recombinant TBSV and DI population that were inoculated onto GFP-transgenic N. benthamiana plants in which silencing of the GFP transgene was initiated, but they were removed from the virus and DIs that were maintained on wild-type plants. A foreign insert derived from an endogenous N. benthamiana gene encoding the H subunit of the magnesium chelatase (NbChlH) was deleted, whereas the fragment of an RNA-dependent RNA polymerase gene (NbRdRP1m) was retained in the recombinant TBSV population. These results demonstrate that the recombination of TBSV to remove nonviral fragments is influenced by silencing and the type of inserts.
Zhong
Xueyan
X
Southwest Missouri State University at Mountain Grove, Department of Fruit Science, 9740 Red Spring Road, Mountain Grove 65711, USA.
Hou
Hesheng
H
Qiu
Wenping
W
D004274:DNA, Recombinant / Q000235:genetics*; D003673:Defective Viruses / Q000235:genetics*; D015967:Gene Expression Regulation, Viral; D020868:Gene Silencing; D005818:Genetic Engineering; D014026:Nicotiana / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D017864:Tombusvirus / Q000235:genetics*; D014764:Viral Proteins; D014779:Virus Replication
D004274:DNA, Recombinant; D014764:Viral Proteins