Abstract
The development of genetically engineered resistance to plant viruses is a result of efforts to understand the plant-virus interactions involved in “crossprotection,” a phenomenon observed with several plant virus diseases. Historically, expression of the coat protein gene of Tobacco mosaic virus in transgenic tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum) plants is the first example of transgene-mediated resistance to a plant virus. Subsequently, virus-derived sequences of several plant viruses were shown to confer virus resistance in experimental and/or natural hosts. For plant RNA viruses, virus complementary DNA sequences shown to confer resistance include wild-type genes, mutated genes that produced truncated protein products, and nontranslatable sense or antisense transcripts to various regions of the virus genome. Resistance also has been demonstrated for some viruses by mutant trans-dominant gene products, derived from the movement protein and replication-associated protein genes. In addition to virus-derived sequences, gene sequences of plant origin have also been used for transgenic resistance, and such resistance can be virus-specific, for instance, R genes isolated from resistant plant genotypes, or nonspecific, for example, ribosome inactivating proteins and proteinase inhibitors. Plantibodies and 2–5A synthetase, a class of proteins of mammalian origin, have also been useful in engineering plant virus resistance. In the case of transgenic resistance mediated by viral coat protein, the mechanism of resistance was suggested to operate during the early events of virus infection. However, transgene-mediated RNA silencing and generation of small interfering RNAs appears to be the primary mechanism that confers resistance to plant viruses. Despite the advantages of transgene-mediated resistance, current interest in the development and use of transgenic virus resistant plants is low in most parts of the world. However, because of its real potential, we believe that this technology will have more widespread and renewed interest in the near future.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
McKinney, H. H. (1929) Mosaic diseases in the Canary Islands, West Africa, and Gibraltar. J. Agric. Res. 39, 557–578.
Powell-Abel, P., Nelson, R. S., De, B., et al. (1986) Delay of disease development in transgenic plants that express the tobacco mosaic virus coat protein gene. Science 232, 738–743.
Wilson, T. M. A. (1993) Strategies to protect crop plants against viruses: Pathogen-derived resistance blossoms. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 90, 3134–3141.
Goldbach, R., Bucher, E., and Prins, M. (2003) Resistance mechanisms to plant viruses: an overview. Virus Res. 92, 207–212
Beachy, R. N., Loesch-Fries, S., and Tumer N. E. (1990) Coat protein-mediated resistance against virus infection. Annu. Rev. Phytopathol. 28, 451–474.
Powell, P. A., Stark, D. M., Sanders, P. R., and Beachy, R. N. (1989) Protection against tobacco mosaic virus in transgenic plants that express tobacco mosaic virus antisense RNA. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 86, 6949–6952.
Powell, P. A., Sanders, P. R., Tumer, N., Fraley, R. T., and Beachy, R. N. (1990) Protection against tobacco mosaic virus infection in transgenic plants requires accumulation of coat protein rather than coat protein RNA sequences. Virology 175, 124–130.
Register, J. C., III, and Beachy, R. N. (1988) Resistance to TMV in transgenic plants results from interference with an early event in infection. Virology 166, 524–532.
Lindbo, J. A., and Dougherty, W. G. (1992) Pathogen-derived resistance to a potyvirus: immune and resistant phenotypes in transgenic tobacco expressing altered forms of a potyvirus coat protein nucleotide sequence. Mol Plant-Microbe Interact. 5, 144–153.
van der Vlugt, R. A. Ruiter, R. K., and Goldbach, R. (1992) Evidence for sense RNA-mediated protection to PVYN in tobacco plants transformed with the viral coat protein cistron. Plant Mol. Biol. 20, 631–639.
Tepfer, M. (2002) Risk-assessment of virus-resistant transgenic plants. Annu. Rev. Phytopathol. 40, 467–491.
Gonsalves, D. (1998) Control of papaya ringspot virus in papaya: a case study. Annu. Rev. Phytopathol. 36, 415–437.
Golemboski, D. B., Lomonossoff, G. P., and Zaitlin, M. (1990) Plants transformed with a tobacco mosaic virus nonstructural gene sequence are resistant to the virus. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 87, 6311–6315.
Nguyen, F., Lucas, W. J., Ding, B., and Zaitlin, M. (1996) Viral RNA trafficking is inhibited in replicase-mediated resistant transgenic tobacco plants. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 93, 12,643–12,647.
Morano, M. R. and Baulcombe, D. (1998) Pathogen-derived resistance targeted against the negative-strand RNA of tobacco mosaic virus: RNA strand-specific gene silencing? Plant J. 13, 537–546.
Baulcombe, D. C. (1996) Mechanisms of pathogen-derived resistance to viruses in transgenic plants. Plant Cell 8, 1833–1844.
Cooper, B., Lapidot, M., Heick, J. A., Dodds, J. A., and Beachy, R. N. (1995) A defective movement protein of TMV in transgenic plants confers resistance to multiple viruses whereas the functional analog increases susceptibility. Virology 206, 307–313.
Duan, Y. P., Powell, C. A., Purcifull, D. E., Broglio, P., and Hiebert, E. (1997) Phenotypic variation in transgenic tobacco expressing mutated geminivirus movement/pathogenicity (BC1) proteins. Mol. Plant-Microbe Interact. 10, 1065–1074.
Hou, Y. M., Sanders, R., Ursin, V. M., and Gilbertson, R. L. (2000) Transgenic plants expressing geminivirus movement proteins: abnormal phenotypes and delayed infection by Tomato mottle virus in transgenic tomatoes expressing the Bean dwarf mosaic virus BV1 or BC1 proteins. Mol. Plant-Microbe Interact. 13, 297–308.
Napoli, C., Lemieux, C., and Jorgensen, R. (1990) Introduction of a chimeric chalcone synthase gene into Petunia results in reversible co-suppression of homologous genes in trans. Plant Cell 2, 279–289.
Hamilton, A. J. and Baulcombe, D. C. (1999) A species of small antisense RNA in posttranscriptional gene silencing in plants. Science 286, 950–952.
Hammond, S. M., Bernstein, E., Beach, D., and Hannon, G. J. (2000) An RNA-directed nuclease mediates post-transcriptional gene silencing in Drosophila cells. Nature 404, 293–296.
Lindbo, J., Silva-Rosales, L., Proebsting, W., and Dougherty, W. (1993) Induction of a highly specific antiviral state in transgenic plants: Implications for regulation of gene expression and virus resistance. Plant Cell 5, 1749–1759.
Smith, N. A., Singh, S. P., Wang, M. B., Stoutjesdijk, P. A., Green, A. G., and Waterhouse, P. M. (2000) Gene expression: total silencing by intron-spliced hairpin RNAs. Nature 407, 319–320.
Helliwell, C., and Waterhouse, P. (2003) Constructs and methods for high-throughput gene silencing in plants. Methods 30, 289–295.
Wesley, S. V., Helliwell, C. A., Smith, N. A., et al. (2001) Construct design for efficient, effective and high-throughput gene silencing in plants. Plant J. 27, 581–590.
Tenllado, F., Llave, C., and Diaz-Ruiz, J. R. (2004) RNA interference as a new biotechnological tool for the control of virus diseases in plants. Virus Res. 102, 85–96.
Whitham, S., Dinesh-Kumar, S. P., Choi, D., Hehl, R., Corr, C., and Baker, B. (1994) The product of the tobacco mosaic virus resistance gene N: similarity to toll and the interleukin-1 receptor. Cell 78, 1101–1115.
Whitham, S., McCormick, S., Baker, B. (1996) The N gene of tobacco confers resistance to tobacco mosaic virus in transgenic tomato. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 6, 8776–8781.
Moffett, P., Farnham, G., Peart, J., and Baulcombe, D. C. (2002) Interaction between domains of a plant NBS-LRR protein in disease resistance-related cell death. EMBO J. 21, 4511–4519.
Lanfermeijer, F. C., Dijkhuis, J., Sturre, M. J. G., de Haan, P., and Hille, J. (2003) Cloning and characterization of the durable tomato mosaic virus resistance gene Tm-2 2 from Lycopersicon esculentum. Plant Mol Biol. 52, 1037–1049.
Chisholm, S. T., Mahajan, S. K., Whitham, S. A., Yamamoto, M. L., and Carrington, J. C. (2000) Cloning of the Arabidopsis RTM1 gene, which controls restriction of long-distance movement of tobacco etch virus. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 97, 489–494.
Whitham, S. A., Anderberg, R. J., Chisholm, S. T., and Carrington, J. C. (2000) Arabidopsis RTM2 gene is necessary for specific restriction of tobacco etch virus and encodes an unusual small heat shock-like protein. Plant Cell 12, 569–582.
Gutierrez-Campos, R., Torres-Acosta, J. A., Saucedo-Arias, L. J., and Gomez-Lim, M. A. (1999) The use of cysteine proteinase inhibitors to engineer resistance against potyviruses in transgenic tobacco plants. Nat. Biotechnol. 17, 1223–1226.
Lodge, J. K., Kaniewski, W. K., and Tumer, N. E. (1993) Broad-spectrum virus resistance in transgenic plants expressing pokeweed antiviral protein. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 90, 7089–7093.
Tumer, N. E., Hwang, D. J., and Bonness, M. (1997) C-terminal deletion mutant of pokeweed antiviral protein inhibits viral infection but does not depurinate host ribosomes. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 94, 3866–3871.
Hudak, K. A., Bauman, J. D., and Tumer, N. E. (2002) Pokeweed antiviral protein binds to the cap structure of eukaryotic mRNA and depurinates the mRNA downstream of the cap. RNA 8, 1148–1159.
Hong, Y., Saunders, K., Hartley, M. R., and Stanley, J. (1996) Resistance to geminivirus infection by virus-induced expression of dianthin in transgenic plants. Virology 220, 119–127.
Krishnan, R., McDonald, K. A., Dandekar, A. M., Jackman, A. P., and Falk, B. (2002) Expression of recombinant trichosanthin, a ribosome-inactivating protein, in transgenic tobacco. J. Biotechnol. 97, 69–88.
Tavladoraki, P., Benvenuto, E., Trinca, S., De Martinis, D., Cattaneo, A., and Galeffi, P. (1993) Transgenic plants expressing a functional single-chain Fv antibody are specifically protected from virus attack. Nature 366, 469–472.
Franconi, R., Roggero, P., Pirazzi, P., et al. (1999) Functional expression in bacteria and plants of an scFv antibody fragment against tospoviruses. Immunotechnology 4, 189–201.
Truve, E., Kelve, M., Aaspollu, A., Kuusksalu, A., Seppanen, P., and Saarma, M. (1994) Principles and background for the construction of transgenic plants displaying multiple virus resistance. Arch. Virol. Suppl. 9, 41–50.
Snead, M. A., Alting-Mees, M. A., and Short, J. M. (1998) cDNA library construction for lambda-ZAP based vectors. In Methods in Molecular Biology Vol 81: Plant Virology Protocols. (Foster, G. D. and Taylor, S. C., eds.), Humana Press, Totowa, NJ, pp. 255–268.
Stratford, R. (1998) PCR cloning of coat protein genes. In Methods in Molecular Biology Vol 81: Plant Virology Protocols. (Foster, G. D. and Taylor, S. C., eds.), Humana Press, Totowa, NJ, pp. 269–278.
Lin, H. X., Rubio, L., Smythe, A., Jiminez, M., and Falk, B. W. (2003) Genetic diversity and biological variation among California isolates of Cucumber mosaic virus. J. Gen. Virol. 84, 249–258.
Acknowledgments
This work was supported in part by grants from the California Citrus Research Board, and the University of California Discovery Grants Program (BioSTAR).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2007 Humana Press Inc.
About this protocol
Cite this protocol
Sudarshana, M.R., Roy, G., Falk, B.W. (2007). Methods for Engineering Resistance to Plant Viruses. In: Ronald, P.C. (eds) Plant-Pathogen Interactions. Methods in Molecular Biology, vol 354. Humana Press. https://doi.org/10.1385/1-59259-966-4:183
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1385/1-59259-966-4:183
Publisher Name: Humana Press
Print ISBN: 978-1-58829-448-7
Online ISBN: 978-1-59259-966-0
eBook Packages: Springer Protocols