Coat Protein Gene-Mediated Resistance to Barely Yellow Mosaic Virus-HN and Barely Mild Mosaic Virus-Kor in Transgenic Barely

Barely yellow mosaic(BaYMV) and barely mild mosaic (BaMMV) bymoviruses are both transmitted by the soil-inhabiting fungus Polymyxa gramnis, and are responsible for economic losses in barley crops in Asia and Europe. Because chemical control of the vector is ineffective, the losses can only be prevented by growing resistant barley cultivars. The objective of this study is to produce resistant barley plants by transformation with viral coat protein(cp) genes. Resistance tests of T1 plants transformed with the BaYMV CP gene showed that at least four independent lines had clear resistance to BaYMV but two other lines were highly susceptible with severe symptoms. The CP gene was detected in all resistant T1 plants by genomic PCR. Most of T2 progenies derived from the resistant T1 lines also showed resistance. In contrast, only one out of 21 independent T2 lines transformed with the BAMMV CP gene tested showed clear resistance to BaMMV, and others were very susceptible. Further analyses of resistance and CP gene expression are in progress.