The mechanism of graft transmission of sense and antisense gene silencing in tomato plants

We investigated the effect of target mRNA level on grafting-transmitted gene silencing in tomato plants by using a strong ACC oxidase 1 (ACO1) silencer as the stock and transgenic ACO1 overexpressers as scions. Manifestation of graft transmission of sense gene silencing required a high initial level of target mRNA in the scion. A relatively high level of siRNA, similar to that in the strong ACO1 silencer, was also detected in the silencing-susceptible strong ACO1 overexpressers prior to grafting. After grafting the silencing signal from the stock enhanced the level of the siRNAs in the scion and the ACO1 mRNA level was reduced dramatically. Using stock and scions producing different siRNAs we provided evidence that the transmissible silencing signal does not correspond to the bulk siRNAs in the stock. We also showed, contrary to a previous report, that antisense silencing was graft-transmissible but it took longer to manifest itself. The delay in graft transmission from antisense-silenced plants could be attributed to the difference in the nature or strength of the signal or the mechanism of its amplification, but is further evidence of mechanistic similarities between sense and antisense silencing.