Use of Tomato yellow leaf curl virus (TYLCV) Rep Gene Sequences to Engineer TYLCV Resistance in Tomato

ABSTRACT Tomato yellow leaf curl virus (TYLCV), a member of the genus Begomovirus (family Geminiviridae), causes severe losses in tomato production in the tropics and subtropics. In order to generate engineered resistance, eight different constructs of the TYLCV replication-associated protein (Rep) and C4 gene sequences were tested in transformed tomato inbred lines. Transgenic plants were screened for resistance to TYLCV using viruliferous whiteflies. No symptoms were observed and no TYLCV genomic DNA was detected by both hybridization and polymerase chain reaction in progenies of plants transformed with three constructs. This resistance was observed in plants that contained one of the following transgenes: 2/5Rep (81 nucleotides [nt] of the intergenic region [IR] plus 426 nt of the 5' end of the TYLCV Rep gene), Delta2/5Rep (85 nt of the IR plus 595 nt of the 5' end of the TYLCV Rep gene in the antisense orientation), and RepDelta2/5Rep (81 nt of the IR, the entire Rep gene, and 41 nt 3' to the end of the Rep gene fused to Delta2/5Rep). Our study differs from other transgenic Geminivirus resistance reports involving the Rep gene in that viruliferous whiteflies were used for challenge inoculation instead of agroinoculation or biolistic inoculation, and TYLCV resistance was evaluated under field conditions.