Nucleic acids encoding tospovirus genome and expression thereof

Claim 1

Recombinant DNA constructs comprising a DNA sequence under expression control of a promoter and a terminator capable of functioning in plants, wherein the DNA sequence encodes an RNA sequence selected from the group consisting of: (a) the SRNA nucleotide sequence from 1 to 2915 depicted in FIG. 4; (b) the SRNA nucleotide sequence from 1987 to 2763 depicted in FIG. 4; (c) the LRNA nucleotide sequence depicted in FIG. 6B; (d) an RNA nucleotide sequence encoding for a tospovirus protein in which one or more codons of the RNA sequence of (a), (b) or (c) have been replaced by codons coding for the same amino acid or termination signal; (e) an RNA sequence complementary to the RNA sequence of (a), (b), (c) or (d); and (f) an RNA sequence which is complementary to one which, when incubated for 16 hours in a buffer system comprising 5 times standard saline citrate, 0.5% sodium dodecyl sulphate, 5 times Denhardts solution, 50% formamide and 100 μg/ml carrier DNA followed by washing 3 times with a buffer system comprising 1 times standard saline citrate and 0.1% sodium dodecyl sulphate at 65° C. for one hour each time, still hybridizes with the sequence of (a), (b), (c), (d) or (e) above.