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Title: Engineering virus resistance using a modified potato gene

Author
item CAVATORTA, JASON - Cornell University
item PEREZ, KARI - Cornell University
item Gray, Stewart
item VANEK, JOYCE - Boyce Thompson Institute
item YEAM, INHWA - Cornell University
item JAHN, MOLLY - University Of Wisconsin

Submitted to: Plant Biotechnology Journal
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 6/10/2011
Publication Date: 6/12/2011
Citation: Cavatorta, J., Perez, K., Gray, S.M., Vanek, J., Yeam, I., Jahn, M. 2011. Engineering virus resistance using a modified potato gene. Plant Biotechnology Journal. DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-7652.2011.00622.x.

Interpretive Summary: Resistance to potato virus Y (PVY) in potato is highly effective, but difficult to achieve due to the genetics of potato and an inability to easily incorporate a resistance gene without negatively affecting other agronomic traits using conventional plant breeding. Pepper and potato share many genes and one such gene in pepper has evolved to become a resistance gene that acts to protect the pepper plant from infection by PVY. In this study we identify the gene in potato and using genetic engineering change the gene so it resembles the resistance gene in pepper. When the altered potato gene was put back into potato it acted like a resistance gene and protected the potato plants from infection by PVY. This is a technology that could be useful in not only making any potato cultivar resistant to PVY and related viruses, but it could also be used to generate virus resistant plants of many different crop species.

Technical Abstract: Natural mutations in translation initiation factor eIF4E confer resistance to potyviruses in many plant species. Potato is a staple food crop plagued by several potyviruses, yet to date no known eIF4E-mediated resistance genes have been identified. In this study we demonstrate that transgenic expression of the pvr12 gene from pepper confers resistance to Potato virus Y (PVY) in potato. We then use this information to convert the susceptible potato ortholog of this allele into a de novo allele for resistance to PVY using site-directed mutagenesis. Potato plants over-expressing the mutated potato allele are resistant to virus infection. Resistant lines expressed high levels of eIF4E mRNA and protein. The resistant plants showed growth similar to untransformed controls and produced phenotypically similar tubers. This technique disrupts a key step in the viral infection process and may potentially be used to engineer virus resistance in a number of economically important plant-viral pathosystems. Furthermore, the “intragenic” nature of this approach, whereby the transferred coding region is modified from a gene in the target crop, may be advantageous with respect to consumer acceptance.