Peptide-mediated broad-spectrum plant resistance to tospoviruses

Abstract

Plant viruses have a significant impact on agronomic losses worldwide. A new strategy for engineering virus-resistant plants by transgenic expression of a dominant interfering peptide is presented here. This peptide of 29 aa strongly interacts with the nucleocapsid proteins (N) of different tospoviruses. Transgenic Nicotiana benthamiana lines expressing the peptide fused to a carrier protein were challenged with five different tospoviruses that have a nucleocapsid protein interacting with the peptide. In the transgenic plants, strong resistance to tomato spotted wilt virus, tomato chlorotic spot virus, groundnut ring spot virus, and chrysanthemum stem necrosis virus was observed. This therefore demonstrates the feasibility of using peptide ''aptamers'' as an in vivo tool to control viral infection in higher plants.

Nuclear trapping by GL3 controls intercellular transport and redistribution of TTG1 protein inArabidopsis

“…4). The aptamer approach uses a small protein fragment to compete with the binding of the two proteins under consideration (Rudolph et al, 2003). For this experiment, we used the 78 amino acids of the GL3 protein known to be relevant for the interaction with TTG1 (Table 3).…”

Stability of Transgenic Resistance Against Plant Viruses

“…Besides the PDR strategy, alternative biotechnological approaches for the manufacturing of plants resistant to viruses include the expression of plant virus-resistance genes in other plants than those from which they were isolated (Farnham, 2006;Seo et al, 2006;Spassova et al, 2001) and the expression of peptides (Lopez-Ochoa et al, 2006;Rudolph et al, 2003;Uhrig, 2003) or antibodies. After the first successful application of the later strategy in 1993 by Tavladoraki and co-workers, with antibodies that reduced the susceptibility to Artichoke mottle crinkle virus using a single-chain variable fragment (scFv) directed against the CP of the virus, technical difficulties hampered a wider application of this methodology.…”

Double-stranded RNA-specific Ribonuclease Confers Tolerance against <i>Chrysanthemum Stunt Viroid</i> and <i>Tomato Spotted Wilt Virus</i> in Transgenic Chrysanthemum Plants

“…A similar approach to apply an antiviral defense component in humans to plants was not successful (Frese et al 2000). Peptide-mediated resistance to tospoviruses obtained by expressing a dominant interfering peptide that interacts with the nucleocapsid protein of these viruses has been reported as a new strategy to reduce the losses by these diseases (Rudolph et al 2003). Considering the recent worldwide spread of tospoviruses from North America, we urgently need to confer durable resistance to this kind of serious disease, and investigate thoroughly the above approaches.…”