Development of Geminivirus-Based Gene Vectors for Dicotyledonous Plants

Abstract

Geminiviruses are small icosahedral plant viruses that contain circular single-stranded DNA as their genome. In tomato golden mosaic virus (TGMV), a geminivirus that infects dicotyledonous hosts, several genes involved in replication, spread of virus or DNA in plants, and possibly insect transmission have been identified. Gene replacement experiments suggest that useful plant gene expression vectors can be constructed from TGMV. Following the integration of stable master copies of vectors based on TGMV DNA into plant chromosomal DNA, heritable gene amplification of a number of bacterial genes has been demonstrated, suggesting exciting possibilities for similar amplification of plant genes in the future.