Figure 6. GFP silencing and complementation.

A) Schematic representation of plasmids LIII dGFP, LIII dGFP+RNAi and LIII dGFP+RNAi+re-dGFP. B) Expression of destabilized GFP (dGFP) was assayed in N. benthamiana two days after A. tumefaciens mediated transformation. The larger stereomicroscopic pictures depict 5×5 mm² leaf sections, while the inlay pictures show confocal scans of single epidermal cells (scale bar = 75 nm). For image acquisition the same settings were used for all samples. Co-expression of dGFP together with the RNAi construct targeting dGFP mRNA completely silences dGFP expression. A recoded version of dGFP (re-dGFP) is immune to silencing and able to restore strong dGFP fluorescence despite expression of the RNAi construct. Addition of P19 is able to suppress dGFP silencing, but only partly: expression of dGFP together with the RNAi construct is weaker and spottier than expression of dGFP alone.