Abstract
Viral infections in crops can cause serious economic losses. The best way to control a viral infection in the field is to use plants that are resistant to the virus. Such plants can be obtained by introducing natural resistance genes by classical breeding methods. However, these genes are often linked to undesirable character traits. Some ten years ago, it was suggested that genetic engineering could be used to increase virus resistance in plants. The idea was based on the observation that inoculation with a non-virulent virus strain conferred protection from infection by a virulent strain. This phenomenon is called cross protection and has been used to protect crops in the field. Instead of inoculating the whole virus onto the plant, the insertion of only part of the viral genome into the plant chromosomes was suspected to provide a protection against the virus. This was confirmed and transgenic virus resistant plants expressing a viral sequence are now starting to appear on the market.
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