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Dose-dependent RNAi-mediated geminivirus resistance in the tropical root crop cassava

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Abstract

Cassava mosaic disease is a major constraint for cassava production in Africa, resulting in significant economic losses. We have engineered transgenic cassava with resistance to African cassava mosaic virus (ACMV), by expressing ACMV AC1-homologous hairpin double-strand RNAs. Transgenic cassava lines with high levels of AC1-homologous small RNAs have ACMV immunity with increasing viral load and different inoculation methods. We report a correlation between the expression of the AC1-homologous small RNAs and the ACMV resistance of the transgenic cassava lines. Characterization of the small RNAs revealed that only some of the hairpin-derived small RNAs fall into currently known small interfering RNA classes in plants. The method is scalable to stacking by targeting multiple virus isolates with additional hairpins.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Dr. John Stanley (John Innes Centre) for the ACMV clones, and Drs. Johannes Fütterer (ETH Zurich), Daniel Schöner (ETH Zurich) and Thomas Hohn (University of Basel) for helpful discussions. This work was supported by grants from the Eiselen-Foundation-Ulm and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Grand Challenges in Global Health Initiative.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biology, Institute of Plant Sciences, ETH Zürich, Universitätstrasse 2, 8092, Zurich, Switzerland

    Hervé Vanderschuren, Adrian Alder, Peng Zhang & Wilhelm Gruissem

  2. Shanghai Center for Cassava Biotechnology, Institute of Plant Physiology and Ecology, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 300 Fenglin Road, Shanghai, 200032, China

    Peng Zhang & Wilhelm Gruissem

Authors
  1. Hervé Vanderschuren
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  2. Adrian Alder
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  3. Peng Zhang
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  4. Wilhelm Gruissem
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Correspondence to Hervé Vanderschuren or Wilhelm Gruissem.

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Table S1

Sequences and functions of primers and oligonucleotides used in the experiments. (DOC 131 kb)

Fig. S1

Supplementary material 2 (TIFF 3175 kb)

Fig. S2

Supplementary material 3 (TIFF 3175 kb)

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Vanderschuren, H., Alder, A., Zhang, P. et al. Dose-dependent RNAi-mediated geminivirus resistance in the tropical root crop cassava. Plant Mol Biol 70, 265–272 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11103-009-9472-3

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