Improving the effectiveness of amiRNA-mediated resistance against Turnip mosaic virus by combining two amiRNAs or by targeting highly conserved viral genomic regions

[EN] A drawback of recent antiviral therapies based on the transgenic expression of artificial microRNAs (amiRs) is the ease with which viruses generate escape mutations. Here, we show two alternative strategies for improving the effectiveness of resistance in plants. First, we expressed two amiRs complementary to independent targets in the viral genome, and second, we designed amiRs complementary to highly conserved RNA motifs in the viral genome.This work was supported by grants RGP12/2008 from the Human Frontier Science Program Organization, PROMETEO2010/019 from the Generalitat Valenciana, and BFU2012-30805 from the Spanish Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad (MINECO) to S.F.E. and by grants 2010TW0015 from CSIC and BIO2011-26741 from MINECO to J.-A.D.F.M. was supported by a fellowship from the Universidad Politecnica de Valencia.Lafforgue, G.; Martínez, F.; Niu, QW.; Chua, NH.; Daros Arnau, JA.; Elena Fito, SF. (2013). Improving the effectiveness of amiRNA-mediated resistance against Turnip mosaic virus by combining two amiRNAs or by targeting highly conserved viral genomic regions. Journal of Virology. 87(14):8254-8256. doi:10.1128/JVI.00914-13S82548256871