Suppression of tobamovirus movement toward upper leaves in the tomato plant over-expressing a maize calreticulin

To ascertain the effect of over-expressed maize calreticulin in tomato plant on tobamovirus movement in addition to validating potentiality of the gene (ZmCRT) as a means for the virus-resistance resource, four ZmCRT-expressing homozygous lines were generated from the T0 plants as using an Agrobacterium-mediated transformation, nucleic acid analyses, and a conventional breeding method. Of them, a line was subjected to the bioassay for tolerances to tobacco mosaic virus-U1 (TMV-U1) and tomato mosaic virus (ToMV) followed by RT-PCR and a chlorophyll fluorescence quenching analyses. Both transgenic plants transcribing ZmCRT and wild-type plants showed no symptom by 20 days after viruses inoculation, however the photosystem II quantum yield parameter measured from the upper leaves of ToMV-inoculated plants revealed that ZmCRT transgenic plants have higher photosynthetic ability than wild-type ones at that time, which indirectly implies that over-expressed ZmCRT product acts as a barrier to the cell-to-cell and/or systemic movement of ToMV. Moreover, ZmCRT transgenic plants showed remarkably longer shoot length than wild-type ones in 40 days after TMV-U1 or ToMV inoculation each, which might be resulted from higher photosynthetic ability during the phase not yet showing any external symptoms. Collectively, over-expressed ZmCRT protein in tomato plants is able to interrupt the systemic movement of infected TMV-U1 and ToMV even though not perfect.