Delivery and expression of functional viral RNA genomes in planta by agroinfiltration.

Agroinfiltration is a simple, efficient, and powerful approach for transient expression of viral genes as well as DNA-based expression of full-length RNA genomes of plant viruses for studies leading to understanding of replication, movement, and assembly. Most importantly, it results in synchronous delivery of Agrobacterium transformants to a majority of cells encompassing the infiltrated area and is therefore ideal for examining the biological activities of viruses having multipartite genomes. Because of the high transformation rate and efficient accumulation of mRNAs, the method is also ideal for analyzing biological activities of viral genomes with defective replication and cell-to-cell movement characteristics.