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ARS Home » Southeast Area » Charleston, South Carolina » Vegetable Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #418463
Research Project: Harnessing Genomic Technologies Toward Improving Vegetable Health in Field and Controlled Environments

Location: Vegetable Research

Title: The N gene protects tomato plants from tomato brown rugose fruit virus infection

Author
item ZHOU, JING - Oak Ridge Institute For Science And Education (ORISE)
item Gilliard, Andrea
item TUNG, JEFFREY - University Of California Berkeley
item DINESH-KUMAR, SAVITHRAMMA - University Of California, Davis
item WHITHAM, STEVEN - Iowa State University
item Baker, Barbara
item Ling, Kai Shu

Submitted to: Plant Biotechnology Journal
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 6/17/2025
Publication Date: 7/2/2025
Citation: Zhou, J., Gilliard, A.C., Tung, J., Dinesh-Kumar, S.P., Whitham, S.A., Baker, B.J., Ling, K. 2025. The N gene protects tomato plants from tomato brown rugose fruit virus infection. Plant Biotechnology Journal. Article e70237 https://doi.org/10.1111/pbi.70237.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/pbi.70237

Interpretive Summary: Tomato is one of the most important vegetable crops that is widely grown around the world. The U.S. is a major tomato producing country with a farm gate value of over $2 billion a year. The emerging tomato brown rugose fruit virus (ToBRFV) which breaks the popular disease resistance gene (Tm-2^2) poses a serious threat to the tomato industry worldwide. In the present study, ARS scientists in collaboration with other scientists used transgenic tomato plants expressing the N gene (tomatoNN) that was developed 30 years ago for their resistance against ToBRFV. We found that tomatoNN plants exhibited a high level of resistance (near immunity) to ToBRFV at normal temperature (22°C), but not at high temperature (30°C). These findings suggest that it is necessary to maintain a specific temperature range in a greenhouse in order to use tomatoNN to manage ToBRFV. As the new source of genetic resistance to ToBRFV is hard to develop, this transgenic tomatoNN plant could be incorporated into tomato breeding to offer an immediate solution to manage the global ToBRFV epidemic.

Technical Abstract: The tobamovirus tomato brown rugose fruit virus (ToBRFV) has recently emerged, causing significant damage to the tomato industry in various regions worldwide,including the U.S. ToBRFV evades the widely used Tm-2^2 resistance gene, which encodes a nucleotide-binding leucine-rich repeat (NLR) class immune receptor with an N-terminal coiled-coil (CC) domain that confers resistance to the tomato mosaic virus (ToMV). In this study, we tested a transgenic tomato line (tomatoNN) expressing the Nicotiana glutinosa N gene, which encodes an NLR with a Toll-Interleukin 1 homology domain (TIR) at the N-terminus, for resistance to ToBRFV. Our results demonstrate that tomatoNN is resistant to ToBRFV, evidenced by the necrotic local lesions observed on the inoculated leaves and the absence of symptoms on systemic leaves. This correlates with very low to non-detectable virus levels in double antibody sandwich enzyme-linked immunosorbent (DAS-ELISA) and quantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) assays. Furthermore, our findings reveal that tomatoNN is resistant to ToBRFV at 22°C, but not at 30°C, showing that the temperature-sensitive nature of N-mediated resistance also extends to ToBRFV resistance in tomato. These results highlight the significant potential of using tomatoNN to breed tomato cultivars resistant to ToBRFV, offering a new approach to managing the global pandemic caused by this emerging virus.