Figure 4.

Silencing efficiency of pssRNAit-designed RNAi fragments against the PDS gene in N. benthamiana. A, Phenotypic response of minimum (Min OT)/maximum (Max OT) off-target regions in comparison with other VIGS construct. B, Effectiveness of the silencing as assessed by the number of leaves that turned white versus the number of green leaves. C, Percent reduction in chlorophyll content compared to the GFP fragment used as a control. A minimum of five leaves from each plant and 10 plants were used to assess efficiency. Bars represent the mean ± se. Different lowercase letters on data points indicate a significant difference (P < 0.05) between the control and PDS-silenced plants determined by two-way ANOVA with Tukey's HSD mean-separation test.