SummaryHypersensitive reactions to plant diseases are typically mediated by R genes. Many R genes that have been cloned only confer resistance to a particular pathogen. However, Chenopodium spp. have multivirus hypersensitive resistance, thus making the understanding of this broad-spectrum resistance mechanism attractive. Using tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) tagged with green¯uorescent protein to follow infection over time, cDNA-AFLP to ®nd genes up-regulated during virus infection in C. amaranticolor and quantitative RT±PCR to accurately measure gene expression at different time points, the ®rst dissection of this signi®cant defense response pathway is presented. The detected diseaseexpressed sequences in C. amaranticolor (DESCA) are similar to those that encode p450 monooxegenases, hypersensitivity-related genes, cellulases, ABC transporters, receptor-like kinases, serine/threonine kinases, phosphoribosylanthranilate transferases and hypothetical R genes, many of which are associated with pathogen defense in other plants. The expressions of these DESCA genes are also induced by infection with the taxonomically distinct tobacco rattle virus (TRV) in C. amaranticolor. In particular, DESCA1, one of the gene fragments from C. amaranticolor that lacks similarity to any other sequence in the GenBank database, is induced at least 200 fold 4 d after infection (dai) by both TMV and TRV. The potential role of DESCA genes in a C. amaranticolor multivirus defense response with regard to their levels and time of gene expression is discussed.