NEELAM

Virus Induced Gene Silencing (VIGS) is a novel reverse genetics tool for functional genomics studies in plants. Rice Tungro Bacilliform Virus (RTBV) is a pararetrovirus which has been modified as VIGS vector. RTBV-VIGS vector has been used to silence pds, chlH and Xa21 genes in rice variety PB1. My work is to analyze the efficiency of RTBV-VIGS vector for gene silencing in different cultivars of Oriza sativa indica . RTBV is a monocot virus and it may infect the plants of other grass species as well, hence, I also aim to analyze the efficiency of RTBV-VIGS in different grass species