The paper addresses environmental concerns raised for transgenic potatoes with increased resistance to insects or viruses and discusses whether transgenic potato cultivars are different from traditionally bred cultivars. Iftransgenic potatoes are cultivated in regions with interfertile species, gene transfer to wild relatives will occur. This has implications on the potential for increasedfitne...

Potato virus Y (PVY) coat protein gene has been cloned from an Indian isolate of PVY. The coat protein gene from this isolate showed 93.2% nucleic acid sequence homology and more than 94% amino acid sequence homology compared to an American isolate. The coat protein gene has been sub-cloned into plant expression vector pBINPLUS and tobacco leaf discs were transformed using Agrobacterium tumefac...

One of the most efficient mechanisms by which plants protect themselves from invading virusesis the specific RNA-dependent silencing pathway termed post-transcriptional gene silencing(PTGS). In this mechanism, resistance to a virus is engineered through the expression of asegment of the virus genomein transgenic plants. Potato VirusY (PVY) is one of the mostdamaging viruses of potato, infecting...

ABSTRACT The expression of a gene that encodes coat protein (CP) of Potato virus X (PVX) in transgenic tobacco plants confers a high level of CP-mediated rresistance (CP-MR) against PVX infection. To determine if posttranscriptional gene silencing (PTGS) plays a role in resistance, transgenic plants expressing PVX CP were challenged against PVX under conditions in which PTGS was suppressed by l...

Previous attempts to develop RNAi-mediated viroid-resistant transgenic plants using nearly full-length Potato spindle tuber viroid (PSTVd) hairpin RNA (hpRNA) were successful; however unusual phenotypes resembling viroid infection occurred. Therefore, in the present work, transgenic Nicotiana benthamiana lines expressing both partial and truncated versions of PSTVd hpRNA were developed. Specifi...

Pooled expertise focused on the plant – this interdisciplinary approach defines the Julius BTL Bio-Test Labor GmbH Sagerheide was founded in 1993 and is located in Sagerheide (Northern Germany near Rostock). The company has set its priorities on the development of methods and execution of examinations for the registration of pesticides and transgenic plants. BTL develops suitable methods for br...

Transgenic crops able to tolerate environmental stress are being developed throughout the world. However, little data is available on the impact of environmental stress-tolerant transgenic crops on soil microorganisms and biochemistry. Recently developed transgenic potato plants carrying an environmental stress-related gene, DREB1A, with a stress-inducible promoter, are being evaluated for grow...

Potato is the third most important food crop worldwide. However, genetic and genomic research of potato has lagged behind other major crops due to the autopolyploidy and highly heterozygous nature associated with the potato genome. Reliable and technically undemanding techniques are not available for functional gene assays in potato. Here we report the development of a transient gene expression...

The evaluation of transgenic plants which is usually carried out under controlled conditions in culture rooms and greenhouses can yield valuable information about the influence of introduced genes on a transgenic plant phenotype. However, an overall assessment of plant performance can only be made by testing transgenic plants in the field environment. Thus, the effects of pyramided rice cystati...

Sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas) is an important subsistence and famine reserve crop grown in developing countries where Sweet potato chlorotic stunt virus (SPCSV; Closteroviridae), a single-stranded RNA (ssRNA) crinivirus, synergizes unrelated viruses in co-infected sweet potato plants. The most severe disease and yield losses are caused by co-infection with SPCSV and a potyvirus, Sweet potato f...