We cloned and sequenced a rat cDNA encoding the 2'-5' oligoadenylate synthetase, a component of the mammalian interferon-induced antiviral response, and used Agrobacterium-mediated transformation to generate transgenic potato clones expressing this mammalian enzyme. In transgenic plants infected with potato virus X and followed under field conditions, virus concentrations in leaves and in tubers were significantly lower than in nontransgenic controls. Additionally, virus concentration in the leaves of five transgenic clones and in tubers of one clone was also lower than in transgenic potatoes expressing potato virus X coat protein.
The efficiency of cell-to-cell virus movement is important in determining pathogenicity, virulence and, in some cases, the host range of a plant virus (reviewed by Atabekov & Taliansky, 1990 ;Maule, 1991). When the efficiency of the transport function and the rate of virus movement are reduced, the plant acquires a certain level of resistance to virus infection.Production of dysfunctional or partially active movement proteins (MP) in transgenic plants is assumed to confer resistance to the wild-type (wt) virus by competition between wt virus-coded MP and the preformed modified MP (mMP). In support of this assumption, it has been reported that transgenic tobacco plants which produce a non-functional MP of tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) acquire resistance to TMV infection (Malyshenko et al., 1993 ;Lapidot et al., 1993). In addition, transgenic plants expressing non-functional TMV MP were resistant to several distantly related or unrelated viruses (Lapidot et al., 1993 ;Cooper et al., 1995). These results suggest
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