Figure 2. Plant phenotyping and molecular analysis of SlRPT4 silenced tomato plants.

(A) phenotype of experimental tomato plants. ToLCNDV tolerant cultivar H-88-78-1 plants were infiltrated with Agrobacterium containing the TRV:SlRPT4 construct (H^SlRPT4). Subsequent to SlRPT4 silencing process, ToLCNDV infection was performed. The photographs of the plants were taken at 7, 14, 21 and 28 days post inoculation (dpi). H^{SlRPT4, SlRPT4} silenced H-88-78-1; H^TRV:00, vector infiltrated control plant; H^TRV:00+T vector infiltrated control plant infected with ToLCNDV; H^SlRPT4+T, SlRPT4 silenced H-88-78-1 infected with ToLCNDV; H^T, cultivar H-88-78-1agroinfiltrated with ToLCNDV. Level of viral DNA in H^T (ToLCNDV infected cultivar H-88-78-1) and H^TRV:SlRPT4+T (SlRPT4 silenced H-88-78-1 infected with ToLCNDV) at different dpi. (B) Southern blot of tomato genomic DNA from all experimental plants were hybridized with ToLCNDV-coat protein gene specific probe. Replicative forms of ToLCNDV genome are designate as open circular (OC), linear (Lin), supercoiled (SC) and single strand (SS). TRV:00 infiltrated H-88-78-1 was taken as a mock control. Ethidium bromide stained DNA from each experiments were shown as equivalent loading. (C) Relative accumulation of viral DNA in the samples H^T and H^SlRPT4+T at different time points. Data depicts means ± SD of three independent experiments (n = 3); *P < 0.05; **P < 0.01; ***P < 0.001.