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- Author or Editor: Michel Ravelonandro x
We have shown that high-level resistance to plum pox virus (PPV) in transgenic plum clone C5 is based on post-transcriptional gene silencing (PTGS), otherwise termed RNA silencing (Scorza et al. Transgenic Res. 10:201-209, 2001). In order to more fully characterize RNA silencing in woody perennial crops, we investigated the production of short interfering RNA (siRNA) in transgenic plum clones C3 and C5, both of which harbor the capsid protein (CP) gene of PPV. We used as a control, plum PT-23, a clone only transformed with the two marker genes, NPTII and GUS. We show in the current report that C5 constitutively produces two classes of siRNA, the short (21-22 nucleotides) and long (≈27 nucleotides) species in the absence of PPV inoculation. Transgenic susceptible clone C3 and the control clone PT-23, when healthy, produce no siRNA. Upon infection, these clones produce only the short siRNA (21-22 nt). This siRNA production suggests that plum trees naturally respond to virus infection by initiating PTGS or PTGS-like mechanisms. This study also suggests that high-level virus resistance in woody perennials may require the production of both the short and long size classes of siRNA, as are produced by the resistant C5 plum clone.
Constructs with self-complementary sequences separated by an intron produce “hairpin” RNA [intron-hairpin-RNA (ihpRNA)] structures that efficiently elicit posttranscriptional gene silencing (PTGS). In the current study, the authors use this technology to confer resistance to plum pox virus (PPV) in herbaceous and woody perennial plants by silencing the PPV–coat protein (CP) gene. The authors confirmed the high capacity of ihpRNA constructs for inducing RNA silencing in Nicotiana benthamiana Domin., as more than 75% of the transformants displayed PTGS as evaluated by specific small interfering RNA (siRNA) production. The authors demonstrated that ihpRNA constructs provided PPV resistance, and they found a correlation between the length of the PPV sequence introduced in the ihpRNA constructs and the frequency of transgenic-resistant plants. Plants transformed with the full-length sequence produced a higher percentage of resistant lines. The authors further demonstrated for the first time that ihpRNA technology is applicable to a woody perennial species. A transgenic plum (Prunus domestica L.) PPV-CP ihpRNA line showed gene silencing characteristics (hypermethylation of the transgene sequence and specific siRNA production) and resistance to PPV infection 16 months after inoculation.