Increased consumption of vegetables has been recommended worldwide as a part of a healthy diet; therefore, determining gene function among breeding materials is crucial for vegetable improvement to meet the sustainable development of new vegetable varieties. However, genetic transformation is time-consuming and laborious, which limits the exploration of gene function for various vegetable crops. Virus-Induced Gene Silencing (VIGS) can perform large-scale and rapid gene silencing in plants due to a reduction in the experimental period and its independence from the stable genetic transformation, providing an excellent opportunity for functional research. VIGS can accelerate model plant research and make it easier to analyze gene function and validation in vegetable crops. Moreover, with the advent of technologies such as virus-mediated heterologous protein expression and the development of CRISPR/Cas9 technology, virus-mediated genetic tools have ushered in a new era in genetics and crop improvement. This study summarizes recent achievements in VIGS and Virus-Induced Gene Editing (VIGE) in vegetables. We also identify several challenges in the current state of VIGS technology in vegetables, serving as a guide for future research.

Plant grafting is one of the oldest agricultural technologies, capable of improving biotic and abiotic stress resistance, regulating plant growth, and increasing crop output and quality. Recent analytical technology has revealed that massive numbers of RNAs can move via the phloem to regulate the gene expression in the scion. However, there are currently no high-throughput methods for validating the role of these long-distance RNAs in grafting, which limits the development of rootstock resources. In this study, methodologies were developed for infection of TRSV vectors in germinating melon seeds. Efficient infection was achieved in Védrantais with completely white first-true leaves and above. Grafting was performed after the gene silencing phenotype appeared in the rootstock, resulting in gene silencing of cucurbit crops as the scion. Furthermore, different RNA viral vectors were utilized to demonstrate that the transfer of viral vectors across the graft union induced gene silencing of the scion. The approach established in this study can provide a valuable research tool for future transfer RNA function studies and rootstock breeding.