Viral RNA as a potential target for two independent mechanisms of replicase-mediated resistance against cucumber mosaic virus.

Transgenic tobacco showing replicase-mediated resistance against cucumber mosaic virus (CMV) can be infected by the strain K-CMV. By use of chimeric constructs between full-length cDNA clones of RNA2 of strains Fny-CMV and K-CMV, the existence of two independent mechanisms of replicase-mediated resistance against viral replication and movement of Fny-CMV was demonstrated in these plants. The data indicate that viral RNA may serve as the target for both mechanisms of resistance. A positive correlation was observed between the amount of K-CMV RNA2 sequence present in the chimeric constructs and the ability to overcome the inhibition of replication, whereas a sequence domain was delimited in K-CMV RNA2 responsible for the ability of this strain to break resistance against virus movement.