Pathogen-derived Resistance To Whitefly-

The whitefly pest and vector, and the geminiviruses that it transmits, have become the principaldeterrents to vegetable production in the U.S. sunbelt states, in Mexico, and throughout the CaribbeanBasin since the introduction and spread of the B biotype whitefly vector in the late 1980's. The mosteffective means of controlling geminivirus-incited diseases is through resistant tomato varieties. Theproposed research is designed to develop pathogen derived resistance using genetic engineering.Dominant defective versions of the geminivirus transcription activator protein (TrAP) will be expressedin transgenic plants which will mimic wild type protein in most respects, but will be unable to activatetranscription. These defective proteins are expected to interfere with the wild type TrAP protein of anincoming virus. The proposed work will take advantage of a powerful combination of interdisciplinaryexpertise from industry and academia. State of the art information concerning the molecularepidemiology of geminiviruses, predicted evolutionary relationships between viruses, geminivirusreplication and transcription strategies, and proven transgenic tomato technology will be employed todevelop genetically engineered tomato cultivars with geminivirus specific and/or broad-spectrumresistance.