Advanced Centre for Plant Virology, Division of Plant Pathology, Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi-110012, India.
Abstracts of the papers presented at the International Conference of Indian Virological Society on “Emerging and Re-emerging viral Diseases of the Tropics and Subtropics” at Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi, India, December 11–14, 2007.
Non-coding small RNAs comprising of siRNAs and miRNAs are widely gaining attention for their role in the regulation of gene expression. RNA interference (RNAi) using short non coding RNAs has been widely explored for the suppression of intracellular viral target mRNAs. RNA silencing, using potent RNAi target sequences from viral genome of leaf curl virus, was designed via artificial micro RNAs (amiRNAs) and transgene derived siRNAs to generate leaf curl resistance in plants. The target sequences were chosen from DNAA of the Tomato leaf curl virus (ToLCV) on the basis of conserved regions. RNA-mediated strategies like artificial micro RNAs, antisense, self-complementary inverted repeats, intron- spliced hairpin RNAs, and small hairpin RNAs were deployed for efficient and predictable resistance to the viruses. We have investigated the efficacies of various non coding RNA based strategies for targeting leaf curl virus of tomato. Since RNAi system possesses shared components for siRNA and miRNA pathways, the study rationalizes the idea of careful selection of viral sequences to minimize the interference of siRNAs in miRNA mediated gene regulation of plant.
