Cassava ranks fifth among the starch producing crops of the world, its annual bioethanol yield is higher than for any other crop. Cassava cultivar KU50, the most widely grown cultivar for non-food purposes is susceptible to Sri Lankan cassava mosaic virus (SLCMV). The objective of this work was to engineer resistance to SLCMV by RNA interference (RNAi) in order to increase biomass yield, an important aspect for bioethanol production. Here, we produced transgenic KU50 lines expressing dsRNA homologous to the region between the AV2 and AV1 of DNA A of SLCMV. High level expression of dsRNA of SLCMV did not induce any growth abnormality in the transgenic plants. Transgenic lines displayed high levels of resistance to SLCMV compared to the wild-type plants and no virus load could be detected in uninoculated new leaves of the infected resistant lines after PCR amplification and RT-PCR analysis. The agronomic performance of the transgenic lines was unimpaired after inoculation with the virus as the plants presented similar growth when compared to the mock inoculated control plants and revealed no apparent reduction in the amount and weight of tubers produced. We show that the resistance is correlated with post-transcriptional gene silencing because of the production of transgene specific siRNA. The results demonstrate that transgenic lines exhibited high levels of resistance to SLCMV. This resistance coupled with the desirable yield components in the transgenic lines makes them better candidates for exploitation in the production of biomass as well as bioethanol.

Multi-auto-transformation vector system has been one of the strategies to produce marker-free transgenic plants without using selective chemicals and plant growth regulators and thus facilitating transgene stacking. In the study reported here, retransformation was carried out in marker-free transgenic potato CV. May Queen containing ChiC gene (isolated from Streptomyces griseus strain HUT 6037) with wasabi defensin (WD) gene (isolated from Wasabia japonica) to pyramid the two disease resistant genes. Molecular analyses of the developed shoots confirmed the existence of both the genes of interest (ChiC and WD) in transgenic plants. Co-expression of the genes was confirmed by RT-PCR, northern blot, and western blot analyses. Disease resistance assay of in vitro plants showed that the transgenic lines co-expressing both the ChiC and WD genes had higher resistance against the fungal pathogens, Fusarium oxysporum (Fusarium wilt) and Alternaria solani (early blight) compared to the non-transformed control and the transgenic lines expressing either of the ChiC or WD genes. The disease resistance potential of the transgenic plants could be increased by transgene stacking or multiple transformations.

Cucumber mosaic virus is an important plant pathogen with a broad host range encompassing many plant species. This study demonstrates the production of transgenic potato lines exhibiting complete resistance to cucumber mosaic virus strain O and Y by post transcriptional gene silencing. Two constructs were used, one, pEKH2IN2CMVai, contains inverted repeat of 1,138 bp fragment of a defective CMV replicase gene derived from RNA2 of cucumber mosaic virus strain O (CMV-O), while the other, TRV-based VIGS vector (pTRV2CMVai), contains the same fragment of the replicase gene, but without inverted repeat. These constructs were used to produce transgenic potato lines of cultivar 'Danshaku', a susceptible genotype to CMV. Transgenic lines derived from pEKH2IN2CMVai accumulated small interfering RNA (siRNA) before and after virus challenge, whereas those derived from pTRV2CMVai showed siRNA expression after virus challenge. When transgenic lines were challenged with CMV-O or CMV-Y, four lines exhibited complete (100%) resistance to both strains, whereas the other lines had high levels of resistance. Infectivity of CMV-O was lower than that of CMV-Y in the highly resistant plants. There were no significant differences with regard to resistance between plants derived from pEKH2IN2CMVai and those obtained from pTRV2CMVai. The presence of CMV-specific siRNA in the resistant phenotypes indicates that the resistance was acquired through RNA silencing.

Cucumber mosaic virus is one of the most constraints to the production of tomato and other vegetable crops worldwide. Here, we generated an RNAi construct containing inverted repeat of 1138 bp fragment of a partial replicase gene of CMV-O and used it to produce transgenic tomato plants expressing CMV-specific dsRNA of the replicase gene. Inoculation of transgenic plants with CMV strain O discriminated three categories of plants: plants that showed complete resistance, which were free of symptoms; highly resistant plants, which had mild symptoms, but later recovered because new leaves that emerged were free of symptoms; and susceptible plants, which showed severe symptoms similar to wild-type plants. The completely resistant lines were selected and challenged with a closely related strain, CMV-Y. Interestingly, the transgenic plant lines either remained immune or showed high levels of resistance to the strain. No virus could be detected in uninoculated new leaves of the resistant lines after RT-PCR and Dot immunobinding assay (DIBA) analyses. We could show that the resistance is correlated with post-transcriptional gene silencing because of the production of transgenic specific siRNA.