Peptide aptamers that bind to geminivirus replication proteins confer a resistance phenotype to tomato yellow leaf curl virus and tomato mottle virus infection in tomato.

Geminiviruses constitute a large family of single-stranded DNA viruses that cause serious losses in important crops worldwide. They often exist in disease complexes and have high recombination and mutation rates, allowing them to adapt rapidly to new hosts and environments. Thus, an effective resistance strategy must be general in character and able to target multiple viruses. The geminivirus replication protein (Rep) is a good target for broad-based disease control because it is highly conserved and required for viral replication. In an earlier study, we identified a set of peptide aptamers that bind to Rep and reduce viral replication in cultured plant cells. In this study, we selected 16 of the peptide aptamers for further analysis in yeast two-hybrid assays. The results of these experiments showed that all 16 peptide aptamers interact with all or most of the Rep proteins from nine viruses representing the three major Geminiviridae genera and identified two peptide aptamers (A22 and A64) that interact strongly with different regions in the Rep N terminus. Transgenic tomato lines expressing A22 or A64 and inoculated with Tomato yellow leaf curl virus or Tomato mottle virus exhibited delayed viral DNA accumulation and often contained lower levels of viral DNA. Strikingly, the effect on symptoms was stronger, with many of the plants showing no symptoms or strongly attenuated symptoms. Together, these results established the efficacy of using Rep-binding peptide aptamers to develop crops that are resistant to diverse geminiviruses.