Figure 4.

Correlation between levels of transgene-derived siRNA expression and visual incidence of CBSD symptoms in TME 204 plant lines 12 months after planting in a confined field trial at Namulonge, Uganda. Twenty-five plant lines for the inverted repeat construct p5001 were assessed for levels of transgene-derived siRNA accumulation by Northern blot analysis from in vitro-grown plants before establishment in the field. Signal intensities of the small RNA blots were analyzed using ImageJ software and values were normalized against the known high siRNA-expressing cassava plant line 718-01 (Ogwok et al., 2012). Northern blot numerical expression values of each line were plotted against CBSD incidence. (A) Relationship between UCBSV-derived siRNA expression with foliar CBSD incidence at 12 MAP, (B) relationship between UCBSV-derived siRNA expression with percentage of CBSD symptomatic storage root at 12 MAP.