Naturally occurring defective interfering RNAs (DIRNAs) and satellite RNAs greatly reduce the accumulation of their helper virus in vivo, but often modulate symptom expression in an unpredictable manner. Deletion mutants Nc/S, Na/M and Sa/Nc+M/S, derived from brome mosaic virus (BMV) RNA-2, failed to replicate when co-inoculated with BMV RNAs-1 and -2 to barley protoplasts. However, the inoculum RNA corresponding to these deletion mutants was extremely stable and could have been mistaken for plus-strand progeny had minus-strand progeny analysis been omitted. These results accentuate the need for such tests in evaluating the ability of mutant viral sequences to replicate. One of the mutants, Nc/S, effectively interfered with the accumulation of BMV RNAs-1 and -2 in barley protoplasts. This non-replicating interfering RNA was termed NRI RNA-2 Nc/S. When present with RNAs-1 and -2 at low inoculum amounts (1 p.g), NRI RNA-2 Nc/S reduced replication of RNA-2, the parental RNA, by 63% and preferentially interfered with minus-strand RNA accumulation. At higher levels (4 ~tg), it completely displaced replication of both RNAs-1 and -2. Mutations eliminating translation of a truncated p2a protein from NRI RNA-2 Nc/S did not alleviate the interference effect, demonstrating that a defective replicase protein was not responsible for the decreased accumulation of genomic RNA. At an NRI RNA:genomic RNA inoculum molar ratio of 1 : 1, NRI RNA-2 Nc/S reduced the accumulation of all helper virus RNAs by 55 %. Since this reduction was seen for both wild-type RNA-3 and ASGP RNA-3, a deletion mutant of RNA-3 that lacks the subgenomic promoter necessary for coat protein expression, it was evident that the effective interference mediated by NRI RNA-2 Nc/S was not mitigated by encapsidation. The ability of the NRI RNAs to mimic satellite DI RNAs in depressing helper virus replication suggests that their expression in transgenic plants may provide a new and widely applicable approach for inducing resistance to viral infection.