Lilies (
Lilium) are among the most important floriculture crops, and to accelerate research regarding lily genetics, the development of reverse-genetics tools is necessary. However,
Agrobacterium-mediated transformation in
Lilium is time-consuming, since the plants require several years to progress from acclimation to flowering. Thus, virus-induced gene silencing (VIGS) is an attractive method for assaying gene function. In the present study, we modified a lily-derived strain of
Cucumber mosaic virus (CMV-HL) as a VIGS vector and evaluated its effectiveness for inducing gene silencing in
Lilium leichtlinii by introducing
L. leichtlinii phytoene desaturase (
LlPDS) gene fragments into an intercistronic region between the 3a and 3b genes of the CMV-HL RNA3 genome. At 30 days after inoculation (dpi) with
LlPDS-containing CMV-HL, photo-bleaching was observed in the upper leaves of
L. leichtlinii, and at 57 dpi, we observed that the natural orange color in flower tepals had faded. Reduced
LlPDS expression and the detection of small interfering
LlPDS RNA indicated that the color changes were the result of
LlPDS gene silencing. In addition, the leaves also exhibited a mild photo-bleaching phenotype in the following year. Therefore, our results indicate that CMV-HL spreads systemically in the leaves and flowers of
Lilium during the first year of infection, as well as in new shoots during the following year, and that the vector system can be successfully applied to induce short-term endogenous gene silencing in lilies.
抄録全体を表示