Use of Tomato leaf curl virus (TYLCV) truncated Rep gene sequence to engineer TYLCV resistance in tomato plants

Abstract

Tomato yellow leaf curl disease causes severe losses in tomato production throughout Mediterranean countries including Tunisia. In order to generate engineered resistance to this disease, an intron-hairpin RNA construct harboring a Tomato yellow leaf curl Sardinia virus (TYLCSV) truncated replication-associated protein (Rep) gene was used to transform genotype of tomato plants. Prepared transgenic plants were agro-inoculated with Tunisian infectious strain of TYLCSV and screened for the resistance to infection. The infected transgenic plants were divided into 3 different groups according to their specific symptoms. Only one of them contained transgenic plants fully resistant to the tomato yellow leaf curl disease.