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Transgenic plums transformed with the plum pox virus coat protein (PPV CP) gene displayed a resistance to the sharka disease (Ravelonandro et al., 1997). However, the expression of PPV CP in transgenic plants may lead to complementation of deficient characteristic of an incoming potyvirus. Indeed, an aphid-intransmissible strain of zucchini yellow mosaic virus (ZYMV-NAT) could be transmitted when encapsidated by the engineered PPV CP (Lecoq et al., 1993). To control such a risk, new PPV CP constructs were designed and introduced into Nicotiana benthamiana genome. In the first construct, the DAG amino acid triplet involved in the potyvirus aphid-transmission was deleted. The second construct encoded a truncated PPV CP lacking its first 140 amino acids. In the last construct, the nucleotides encoding the charged amino-acids R220, Q221 and D264 localized in the core of the PPV CP were removed. A bacterial expression system was developed to show that these deletions prevent the assembly of the PPV CP subunits. For each construct, several transgenic lines were produced and first challenged with several strains of PPV. Two phenotypes of resistance were observed: recovery and immunity. Their biochemical characterization showed that the resistance was RNA-mediated and therefore can be classified as homology-dependent (Jacquet et al., 1998a). Resistant lines producing high level of wild type or modified PPV CP were then inoculated with ZYMV-NAT to perform an aphid-transmission assay. Results of these experiments demonstrated that the use of modified forms of PPV CP genes in transgenic plants provide a good way to control the biological risks associated with heteroencapsidation (Jacquet et al., 1998b).

Resistance to plum pox virus (PPV) infection can be obtained in transgenic plants that express the virus capsid gene. An Agrobacterium-mediated transformation was used to introduce the PPV capsid gene into Prunus domestica plants. Over 11 regenerated plants (clones) were observed for the development of the disease symptoms and analysed for the presence of PPV by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), Western blot analysis, and reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) through 4 dormancy cycles. The level of protection against PPV was determined in the transformed plants, non-transformed plants, and a control transgenic plant "transformed" with the plasmid vector alone. One clone, C-5, appeared fully protected, while PT-6 and C-4 clones accumulated a low concentration of virus and the rest of the clones was entirely susceptible. Little is known about the mechanisms of resistance to virus infection in transgenic woody plants. To investigate this aspect, comparative studies based on the characteristics of resistant and susceptible clones have been started. A question, whether the phenotype resistance of clone C-5 is similar to that observed in transgenic herbaceous plants or not, has been addressed. Recent progress in this investigation is presented.