Virus resistance and gene silencing in plants infected with begomovirus

Gene silencing can occur either repression of transcription, termed Transcriptional Gene Silencing (TGS) or through mRNA degradation, termed post transcriptional gene silencing. Transcriptional gene silencing results from a marked decrease in tracription and hypermethylaton of genes affected. RNAi or PTGS discovered as a natural anti-viral system in plants. Studies revealed that geminiviruses which replicates in nucleus can induce PTGS and become the target for it. RNAi has a strong potential to reduce the infection of geminiviruses. Several studies are already conducted on different genes geminiviruses and that are used for generating virus resistance plants. Our main objective of present study is to develop resistance against geminivirus using a novel strategy based on RNAi. Here we summarise how the RNAi mechanism works against begomovirus infection in plants and how we can utilize it to reduce the losses. © 2010 Asian Network for Scientific Information.