Engineered resistance against plant virus diseases

The development of genetic engineering techniques has enabled the production of transgenic plants that are resistant to viral diseases. Expressing the coat protein (CP) gene of a virus in Iransgenic plants confers resistance against the virus from which the gene was isolated, and to other closely related strains and viruses. This approach has been demonstrated to be effective in conferring protection against viruses from different virus groups including alfalfa mosaic virus, cucumovirus. ilarvirus, potex-virus, potyvirus, tobamovirus and tobravirus. The data available indicate that several factors may affect the efficiency of the protection obtained including the level of the CP in the transgenic plants, the plant in which the CP gene is expressed and enviromental conditions. These and other aspects of coat protein mediated resistance are discussed.