siRNAs based gene silencing of potato virus Y by simultaneous blocking of HC-Pro and NIa

Potato virus Y (PVY) is one of the most dangerous pathogens that cause serious damage to crop production. Fighting plant viral infections is crucial to limit these damages and save millions of dollars for farmers. Gene suppression of selected virus genes is one of the modern, innovative and effective approaches to block viral replication and infection. The virus, in turn, has developed its own strategy to avoid this gene suppression through mutations in the attacked genes of the virus genome. For this reason, blocking several important viral genes simultaneously led to better results in blocking viral replication. In this study, we achieved an epigenetic control of viral infection of PVY (N/NTN) of potato plants cultivar Agria by applying a combination of ds/siRNAs specific for two different conservative regions from the PVY genome, CI-6K2-NIa and HC-Pro. The potato plants that received the ds/siRNAs remained virus-free, suggesting that the CI-6K2-NIa and HC-Pro regions could serve as effective targets for control of PVY.