Coat protein gene-mediated protection in Lactuca sativa against lettuce mosaic potyvirus strains

Lettuce mosaic potyvirus (LMV) can be very destructive on lettuce crops worldwide. The LMV strain 0 (LMV-0) coat protein (CP) gene was engineered for expression in plants. It was introduced into three susceptible cultivars of Lactuca sativa using an improved procedure for transformation and regeneration of lettuce, by co-cultivation of leaf explants with Agrobacterium tumefaciens. Several transformants accumulated detectable levels of LMV CP. The R1 progeny of twelve RO transformants (four plants per cultivar) with T-DNA integration at one single locus, was studied for protection against LMV. The progeny from five RO transformants showed resistance to LMV-0, with the effectiveness of resistance depending on the development stage of the plants at the time of inoculation. The R1 and R2 progeny from one of these RO transformants, Cocarde-9a, were more extensively analysed. The homozygous but not the hemizygous R1 plants displayed protection to LMV-0. The R2 progeny from one homozygous R1 plant were shown to be resistant to infection by LMV-0 and other LMV strains. As previously observed in other cases of potyvirus sequence-mediated protection, a phenomenon of recovery was observed in some plants, as well as complete resistance. However, this recovery phenotype was not always maintained, as opposed to the previous described cases, leading to a late progression of viral infection.