Field Release of Transgenic Virus Tolerant Tomatoes

Tomato production in Southern Italy has fallen in the last ten years owing to the outbreak of different pathogenic agents. Cucumber Mosaic Virus (CMV) particularly affected the high quality variety named San Marzano, mainly utilized by the canning industry, causing severe yield losses. Up to now, no natural form of resistance from tomato wild relatives has been successfully introduced in cultivated lines. Therefore, biotechnological approach represents an effective alternative to classical breeding. Two San Marzano lines were transformed with a cDNA copy of a benign CMV satellite RNA. First evidence of virus tolerance in transformants was obtained during greenhouse experiments. Parental and hybrid transformants were subsequently tested for two years in open field, in the CMV epidemic area, in order to evaluate both the agronomic performance and the environmental impact of transgenic plants. The transgenic satellite potential spread was evaluated by sequencing different satellite RNAs found on tomato and other crop plants surrounding the release field.