Rapid Construction of Full-length cDNA Clones of Tobacco Mosaic Virus and the Infectivity Assay of Its in Vitro Transcript.

The full-length cDNA of tobacco mosaic virus faba bean isolate (TMV-B) was amplified with RT-PCR in which T7 promoter sequence was added in the 5' terminus of its upstream primer, so that full-length cDNA was put directly under the control of a T7 promoter. The cDNA was cloned into plasmid pT7Blue and linear DNA was got by digesting the recombinant with KpnI or KpnI and PstI. Using these linear DNA and full-length PCR product as templates, respectively, their in vitro transcripts were inoculated to Nicotiana tabacum and Chenopodium amaranticolor. All of the transcripts had infectivity and produced symptoms similar to that of wild TMV. It was found that transcripts of the full-length PCR product had higher infectious efficiency than those of linear DNA.