Virus-Induced Gene Silencing (VIGS)

Virus-induced gene silencing (VIGS) is an RNA silencing-based technique that employs recombinant viral vectors to transiently suppress plant gene expression in a sequence-specific manner. It exploits the plants endogenous RNA silencing machinery to induce downregulation of target gene transcripts. VIGS approach has many advantages over conventional techniques. The gene silencing is rapid, specific, easy to induce, and circumvents the need for generation of stable transgenic plants. VIGS is a powerful forward and reverse genetic tool and can be used to silence single or multiple genes within a gene family in various plant species. Since VIGS is performed in the adult plants, it allows study of genes that may be lethal. Several VIGS vectors have been developed to study gene function in dicot and monocot hosts. The most widely used VIGS vector in dicots is the Tobacco rattle virus (TRV)-based system that has been used in over 25 plants species. VIGS has been used successfully to characterize function of genes involved in growth, development and responses to various stresses. Considering number of genome projects have generated full genome sequences of many crop plants, the VIGS approach is a powerful tool to gain insights into gene function in these sequenced genomes.