Open AccessRobust RNA silencing‐mediated resistance to P lum pox virus under variable abiotic and biotic conditions
Author(s) -
Di Nicola Elisa,
Tavazza Mario,
Lucioli Alessandra,
Salandri Laura,
Ilardi Vincenza
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
molecular plant pathology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.945
H-Index - 103
eISSN - 1364-3703
pISSN - 1464-6722
DOI - 10.1111/mpp.12132
Subject(s) - biology , abiotic component , virus , pathosystem , gene silencing , rna interference , rna silencing , transgene , virology , rna , gene , genetics , ecology
Summary Some abiotic and biotic conditions are known to have a negative impact on post‐transcriptional gene silencing ( PTGS ), thus representing a potential concern for the production of stable engineered virus resistance traits. However, depending on the strategy followed to achieve PTGS of the transgene, different responses to external conditions can be expected. In the present study, we utilized the N icotiana benthamiana – P lum pox virus ( PPV ) pathosystem to evaluate in detail the stability of intron‐hairpin (ihp)‐mediated virus resistance under conditions known to adversely affect PTGS . The ihp plants grown at low or high temperatures were fully resistant to multiple PPV challenges, different PPV inoculum concentrations and even to a PPV isolate differing from the ihp construct by more than 28% at the nucleotide level. In addition, infections of ihp plants with viruses belonging to C ucumovirus , P otyvirus or T ombusvirus , all known to affect PTGS at different steps, were not able to defeat PPV resistance. Low temperatures did not affect the accumulation of transgenic small interfering RNAs ( siRNA s), whereas a clear increase in the amount of siRNA s was observed during infections sustained by C ucumber mosaic virus and P otato virus Y . Our results show that the above stress factors do not represent an important concern for the production, through ihp‐ PTGS technology, of transgenic plants having robust virus resistance traits.