Protein-mediated resistance to plant viruses.

Viruses are a major threat to global agricultural production. Conventional breeding of virus-resistant crops has been successful to some extent, but selection procedures may be too slow to meet the challenges of fast-evolving strains of pathogenic viruses. Therefore, the development of transgenic approaches might be a promising alternative. Based upon recent progress in understanding the molecular basis of viral infections and plant defence mechanisms, protein-mediated resistance concepts have been developed that might fruitfully complement transgenic resistance based on triggering the RNA silencing machinery. While earlier approaches focused mainly on the utilization of viral proteins, current strategies include the antiviral potential of proteins, peptides and antibodies from a variety of different sources. The expression of proteins or peptides exhibiting dominant antiviral effects in vivo emerges as a promising tool to engineer broad-spectrum and potentially durable resistance to plant viruses.