Engineered resistance to tomato spotted wilt virus, a negative-strand RNA virus

For a growing number of positive–strand RNA viruses, it has been demonstrated that transformation of host plants with the viral coat protein gene confers resistance to the corresponding virus. Thus far, successful transformation strategies to obtain resistance to negative–strand RNA viruses have not been reported. Here we show that genetically engineered resistance can be obtained to tomato spotted wilt virus, an enveloped virus with a negative–strand RNA genome, by transforming tobacco with the gene encoding the viral nucleocapsid protein, an internal RNA–binding protein. This approach may be useful for producing plants resistant to infection by other negative–strand viruses.