[Introduction of "Access to Health" Initiatives for Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs)～R&D of NTD Medicines～].

Astellas regards the situation where there still remain barriers for many people who have difficulty accessing the healthcare they need due to the lack of available treatments, poverty, healthcare system challenges and insufficient healthcare information. Astellas recognizes this problem as the Access to Health issue. To improve Access to Health, Astellas has identified four areas where we can leverage our strengths and technologies, and is working to solve issues, making full use of external partnerships.

Development of a method to rapidly assess resistance/susceptibility of Micro-Tom tomatoes to Tomato yellow leaf curl virus via agroinoculation of cotyledons.

Objective: Tomato yellow leaf curl virus (TYLCV) is one of the pathogens severely damaging tomato crops. Therefore, methods to treat or prevent TYLCV infection need to be developed. For this purpose, a method to conveniently and quickly assess infection of tomatoes by TYLCV is desired.

Inhibition of binding of tomato yellow leaf curl virus rep to its replication origin by artificial zinc-finger protein.

Previously we demonstrated that inhibition of replication-associated protein (Rep) binding to its replication origin by artificial zinc-finger proteins (AZPs) is a powerful method to prevent plant virus infection in vivo. In the present study, we applied the AZP technology to Tomato yellow leaf curl virus (TYLCV), which is a limiting factor in tomato cultivation worldwide. First, we determined 5'-ATCGGTGT ATCGGTGT-3' in the 195-bp intergenic region of the TYLCV-Israel strain, a strain reported first among TYLCV strains, as the Rep-binding site by gel shift assays.

Construction of plants resistant to TYLCV by using artificial zinc-finger proteins.

Previously, we have demonstrated that plant DNA virus replication could be inhibited in Arabidopsis thaliana by using an artificial zinc-finger protein (AZP) and created AZP-based transgenic A. thaliana resistant to DNA virus infection. Here we apply the AZP technology to tomato yellow leaf curl virus (TYLCV) causing serious damage to an important agricultural crop, tomato.

Generation of plants resistant to tomato yellow leaf curl virus by using artificial zinc-finger proteins.

Previously, we designed an artificial zinc-finger protein (AZP) for blocking a replication protein (Rep) of beet severe curly top virus (BSCTV) from binding to its replication origin and demonstrated that transgenic Arabidopsis plants expressing the AZP are completely resistant to the virus infection. Here we applied the AZP technology to tomato yellow leaf curl virus (TYLCV) infective to an important agricultural crop, tomato. We designed and constructed an AZP binding to the direct repeat to block the TYLCV Rep binding.