Knowledge of the nucleotide sequences in the genomic nucleic acid of several potato viruses has enabled the open reading frames to be identified. These open reading frames are expressed by a variety of strategies, to produce proteins with functions in virus nucleic acid replication, virus particle production, cell-to-cell transport of virus and virus transmission by vectors. The activity of such proteins depends on their interactions with other viral or non-viral materials.Several other biological properties of plant viruses can also be related to individual viral gene products. For example, in plants co-infected with a specific pair of unrelated viruses, one virus can benefit from an ability to use the gene product of the second virus in replication, cell-to-cell transport or transmission by vectors. Similarly, different host resistance genes are targeted against viral replicase, movement protein or coat protein. Thus it is becoming possible to relate gene-for-gene (or more accurately, viral gene domain-host gene) interactions to events at the molecular level. Genetically engineered resistance to plant viruses likewise can be targeted against individual viral genes, and probably also against viral regulatory sequences. Such transgenic resistance seems likely to be as durable as conventional host resistance but durability should be improved by producing plants with combinations of resistances of different kinds, either conventional or genetically engineered, or both.