Virus-induced gene silencing (VIGS) has been used routinely in Nicotiana benthamiana to assess functions of candidate genes and as a way to discover new genes required for diverse pathways, especially disease resistance signalling. VIGS has recently been shown to work in Arabidopsis thaliana and in tomato. Here, we report that VIGS using the tobacco rattle virus (TRV) viral vector can be used i...

Virus-induced gene silencing (VIGS) is a technology that exploits an RNA-mediated antiviral defense mechanism. In plants infected with unmodified viruses the mechanism is specifically targeted against the viral genome. However, with virus vectors carrying inserts derived from host genes the process can be additionally targeted against the corresponding mRNAs. VIGS has been used widely in plants...

Previous studies have shown that WRKY transcription factors play important roles in abiotic stress responses. Thus, virus-induced gene silencing (VIGS) was used to identify the function of SlWRKY79 salt tolerance tomato plants by downregulating expression gene. Under same treatment conditions, SlWRKY79-silenced showed faster stem wilting and more severe leaf shrinkage than control plants, bendi...

Grapevine Algerian latent virus (GALV) is a member of the genus Tombusvirus in the Tombusviridae and infects not only woody perennial grapevine plant but also herbaceous Nicotiana benthamiana plant. In this study, we developed GALV-based gene expression and virus-induced gene silencing (VIGS) vectors in N. benthamiana. The GALV coat protein deletion vector, pGMG, was applied to express the repo...

Several distinct pathways of RNA silencing operate in plants with roles including the suppression of virus accumulation, control of endogenous gene expression, and direction of DNA and chromatin modifications. Proteins of the Dicer-Like and Argonaute (AGO) families have key roles within these silencing pathways and have distinct biochemical properties. We are interested in the relationships bet...

Gene expression in plants can be suppressed in a sequence-specific manner by infection with virus vectors carrying fragments of host genes. Recent developments have revealed that the mechanism of this gene silencing is based on an RNA-mediated defence against viruses. It has also emerged that a related mechanism is involved in the post-transcriptional silencing that accounts for between line va...

Posttranscriptional gene silencing is a defense mechanism in plants that is similar to quelling in fungi and RNA interference in animals. Here, we describe four genetic loci that are required for posttranscriptional gene silencing in Arabidopsis. One of these, SDE1, is a plant homolog of QDE-1 in Neurospora crassa that encodes an RNA-dependent RNA polymerase. The sde1 mutation was specific for ...