'Plant Breeding: Sustaining the Future' Abstracts of the XVIth EUCARPIA Congress, Edinburgh, Scotland, 10-14 September 2001 DEVELOPMENT OF TRANSGENIC TOBACCO AND TOMATO EXPRESSING RESISTANCE TO TOMATO SPOTTED WILT VIRUS (TSWV) O. FEDEROWICZ, G. BARTOSZEWSKI, P. STOEVA, K. NIEMIROWICZ-SZCZYTT Dept of Plant Genetics, Breeding and Biotechnology, Warsaw Agricultural University, Nowoursynowska 166, 02-787 Warsaw, Poland

Agrobacterium-mediated transformation was employed to develop transgenic tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum) and tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum) that contain the nucleoprotein gene of Tomato Spotted Wilt Virus. Eighteen tomato and thirty six tobacco independently transformed plants were obtained.  Progenies from R0 transgenic plants were tested for resistance to infection by two isolates of TSWV. The effectiveness of protection against the virus was investigates upon mechanical inoculation under greenhouse conditions.  Some R1 plants showed high levels of resistance to systemic infection to TSWV should have practical significance for controlling this serious disease, especially since natural sources of TSWV resistance are limited.