Application of a Reassortant Cucumber mosaic virus Vector for Gene Silencing in Tomato and Chili Pepper Plants

We developed a reassortant RNA virus vector derived from $Cucumber$ $mosaic$ $virus$ (CMV), which has advantages of very wide host range and can efficiently induce gene silencing in a few model plants. Certain CMV isolates, however, show limited host ranges presumably because they naturally co-evolved with their own hosts. We used a reassortant comprised of two strains of CMV, Y-CMV and Gn-CMV, to broaden the host range and to develop a virus vector for virus-induced gene silencing (VIGS). Gn-CMV could infect chili pepper and tomato more efficiently than Y-CMV. Gn-CMV RNA1, 3 and Y-CMV RNA2-A1 vector were newly reconstructed, and the transcript mixture of RNA1 and 3 genomes of Gn-CMV and RNA2 genome of Y-CMV RNA2 containing portions of the endogenous phytoene desaturase (PDS) gene (CMV2A1::PDSs) was inoculated onto chili pepper (cv. Chung-yang), tomato (cvs. Bloody butcher, Tigerella, Silvery fir tree, and Czech bush) and $Nicotiana$ $benthamiana$. All the tested plants infected by the reassortant CMV vector showed typical photo-bleaching phenotypes and reduced expression levels of $PDS$ mRNA. These results suggest that the reassortant CMV vector would be a useful tool for the rapid induction of the RNA silencing of endogenous genes in chili pepper and tomato plants.