Recombination between viral DNA and the transgenic coat protein gene of African cassava mosaic geminivirus

Nicotiana benthamiana was transformed with three different constructs (pCRA1, pCRA2 and pJC1) containing the coat protein coding sequence of African cassava mosaic virus (ACMV). Transformed plants were inoculated with a coat protein deletion mutant of ACMV that induces mild systemic symptoms in control plants. Several inoculated plants of transgenic lines CRA1/3, CRA1/4, CRA2/1 and CRA2/2 developed severe systemic symptoms typical of ACMV, DNA analysis revealed that, in these plants, recombination had occurred between the mutant viral DNA and the integrated construct DNA, resulting in the production of recombinant virus progeny with 'wild-type' characteristics. No reversion of mutant to 'wild-type' virus was observed in pJC1-transformed plants. Recombinant virus from several transgenic plants was analysed by PCR and parts of DNA A of virus progeny were cloned. Sequence analysis revealed that only a few nucleotides were changed from the published sequence.