Warwick HRI and School of Life Science, University of Warwick, Warwick, UK.
Sci Rep. 2012;2:836. doi: 10.1038/srep00836. Epub 2012 Nov 12.
Plant virus technology, in particular virus-induced gene silencing, is a widely used reverse- and forward-genetics tool in plant functional genomics. However the potential of virus technology to express genes to induce phenotypes or to complement mutants in order to understand the function of plant genes is not well documented. Here we exploit Potato virus X as a tool for virus-induced gene complementation (VIGC). Using VIGC in tomato, we demonstrated that ectopic viral expression of LeMADS-RIN, which encodes a MADS-box transcription factor (TF), resulted in functional complementation of the non-ripening rin mutant phenotype and caused fruits to ripen. Comparative gene expression analysis indicated that LeMADS-RIN up-regulated expression of the SBP-box (SQUAMOSA promoter binding protein-like) gene LeSPL-CNR, but down-regulated the expression of LeHB-1, an HD-Zip homeobox TF gene. Our data support the hypothesis that a transcriptional network may exist among key TFs in the modulation of fruit ripening in tomato.
植物病毒技术，特别是病毒诱导的基因沉默，是植物功能基因组学中广泛使用的反向和正向遗传学工具。然而，病毒技术在表达基因以诱导表型或互补突变体以了解植物基因功能方面的潜力尚未得到充分记录。在这里，我们利用马铃薯 X 病毒作为病毒诱导基因互补（VIGC）的工具。我们在番茄中利用 VIGC 证明，LeMADS-RIN 的异位病毒表达导致非成熟 rin 突变体表型的功能互补，并导致果实成熟。比较基因表达分析表明，LeMADS-RIN 上调了 SBP-box（SQUAMOSA 启动子结合蛋白样）基因 LeSPL-CNR 的表达，但下调了 HD-Zip 同源盒 TF 基因 LeHB-1 的表达。我们的数据支持这样一种假设，即在番茄果实成熟的调控中，关键 TF 之间可能存在一个转录网络。
