ABSTRACT
Chili pepper is an important vegetable that has been used as a spice and a source of red pigment. In many regions of the world, diseases limit the production of chili pepper. The most common diseases are caused by viruses, such as cucumber mosaic virus (CMV), tobacco mosaic virus (TMV), potato virus Y (PVY), and tomato spotted wilt virus (TSWV). In China, CMV and TMV are major viral pathogens in chili pepper production. Coat protein-mediated protection (CPMP) has been established in transgenic plants against many plant viruses, including TMV and CMV (1-4). We are using the same strategy to develop virus-resistant chili pepper transformed with the CMV CP and TMV CP genes. Pepper regeneration in vitro has been reported by several laboratories via seedling cotyledons or hypocotyl explants (5-14). In addition, there have been reports of Agrobacterium species-mediated transformation of pepper from cotyledons. Liu and coworkers (15) described transformed shoot buds and leaflike structures showing βglucuronidase activity; however, attempts to regenerate whole transgenic plants were unsuccessful. Zhu and associates (16) reported transgenic sweet pepper transformed by Agrobacterium tumefaciens with the CMV CP gene. Two of the T1 plant lines expressed the CMV CP gene.
