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. 2021 Mar 9;10(3):320. doi: 10.3390/pathogens10030320

Figure 2.

Figure 2

Effect of topical application of dsRNA on infection by tomato spotted wilt virus (TSWV). Capsicum plants (N = 30) were sprayed with either water, chemically synthesized GFP dsRNA (0.3 mg/mL) as an off-target negative control, or bacterially expressed dsRNA homologous to the TSWV’s N gene sequence (0.3 mg/mL). At 24 h post treatment, plants were challenged with TSWV by mechanical inoculation. Fourteen days after the viral challenge, tissue samples were collected for qualitative TSWV ELISA analysis. Fisher’s exact test (p = 0.05) was used to compare the infection incidence of the dsRNA treatments to the water negative control (*** = p < 0.001). The foliar application of N gene dsRNA has resulted in significantly reduced incidence of TSWV infection, due to the uptake of dsRNA and the resulting RNAi response against the virus. None of the plants treated with N gene dsRNA were found to be infected with TSWV. GFP dsRNA does not provide resistance to TSWV due to the sequence specificity of the response. See Supplement S2 for raw data.