Agroinfection of Triticum aestivum with Cloned DNA of Wheat Dwarf Virus

Abstract

A head-to-tail dimer of cloned DNA from a Swedish isolate of wheat dwarf virus (WDV) was integrated between the T-DNA border sequences of a broad host range binary vector and transferred into cells of wheat seedlings using an Agrobacterium-mediated delivery system. Two-thirds of the inoculated plants developed a systemic infection. Extracts of infected leaves were shown to contain the virus double-stranded (supercoiled, open circular and linear) and single-stranded DNA forms of unit genome length and the virus capsid polypeptide. The results demonstrate the infectivity of a previously sequenced clone of WDV DNA.