Resistance to Potato Virus Y in Potatoes Induced at Epigenetic Level

Potyviruses are the largest group of plant virus pathogens, which are constantly expanding their territories of emergence, threatening their hosts worldwide. Potato virus Y(PVY) epidemics have a serious negative impact on agricultural productivity, resulting in significant losses to farmers. The need of efficient technique to control PVY is essential for decreasing yield loss in agriculture. Plants employ a defense mechanism called RNA silencing, which we used to direct against the Potyviruses. We induced posttranscriptional gene silencing (PTGS) of essential multifunctional virus gene, such as HC-Pro by specific siRNAs which promote sequence-specific viral RNA degradation by forming a multicomponent RNA-induced silencing complex (RISC). By using PTGS against HC-Pro, we achieved potato resistance to PVY.