Plant Virology
Biotechnology :
Plant viruses can be used both to express new genes and to inhibit expression of selected genes in plants.
An example of specific gene inhibition (gene silencing) is shown to the right.
A normal pea plant is shown above.
Below you see the effect when a plant virus is used to inhibit expression of a gene involved in chlorophyll stabilization.
When this gene is inhibited the chlorophyll is degraded and the plant becomes white.
In order to obtain gene silencing you need to splice the gene of interest into the virus genome.
In principle the function of any plant gene can be investigated by this method.
To the right you see an example of a virus expressing a foreign gene in a plant.
The GUS gene encoding an enzyme giving a dark blue color has been spliced into the virus genome.
The virus has just started to spread and express the new gene in the leaf shown.
