Transgenic tobacco cells: a permissive system for the assessment of resistance strategies against Tomato yellow leaf curl virus

Tomato yellow leaf curl virus (TYLCV) is a major threat to tomato production in the tropics and sub-tropics around the world. The application of genetic engineering and pathogen derived resistance mechanisms to obtain tomatoes that are resistant to this pathogen is considered a promising alternative to the current protective practice against the virus. However, the development of transgenic tomato plants that are resistant to the virus is a resourceconsuming and time-consuming procedure, often with unpredictable efficiency, which hinders the evaluation of genetic designs. For this reason an assessment of the strategies against TYLCV replication preceding transgenic tomato development would ensure the protective potential of the candidate transgene. Attempting to circumvent this issue, the present study demonstrated the feasibility of using tobacco cell lines to study the consequences of c1 antisense expression on TYLCV replication. As a result, the transgenic tobacco cell lines were able to produce siRNA that is complementary to the c1 sequence and inhibited TYLCV multiplication, forecasting what would happen in transgenic plants harboring this antiviral strategy.