Transgenic resistance to Mirafiori lettuce virus in lettuce carrying inverted repeats of the viral coat protein gene

Mirafiori lettuce virus (MiLV), a plant RNA virus belonging to the genus Ophiovirus, is considered to be a causal agent of lettuce big-vein disease. In this study, inverted repeats of a fragment of the coat protein (CP) gene of MiLV in a binary vector pBI121 were transferred via Agrobacterium tumefaciens-mediated transformation into lettuce (Lactuca sativa L.) in order to generate MiLV-resistant lettuce. Forty T(1) lines were analyzed for resistance to MiLV by detecting MiLV in leaves, and two lines (lines 408 and 495) were selected as resistant to MiLV. Both lines were susceptible to Lettuce big-vein associated virus (LBVaV), and line 495 showed higher resistance to MiLV than line 408. Further analysis indicated that line 495 showed resistance to big-vein symptoms expression. Small interfering RNA (siRNA) molecules derived from the transgene were detected in plants of line 495. MiLV was detected in roots but not in leaves of line 495 plants after MiLV inoculation, suggesting that resistance to MiLV is less effective in roots than in leaves.