An rna plant virus vector or portion thereof, a method of construction thereof, and a method of producing a gene derived product therefrom

The method of construction of at least a portion of, an RNA vector from an RNA plant virus, e.g. tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) using as specific functional regions, at least two nucleotide sequences selected from oligonucleotides and polynucleotides of viral RNA for the purpose of producing an RNA molecule containing those nucleotide sequences essential for self-replication or those nucleotide sequences essential for replication upon co-infection with complete TMV in a plant cell or cells, and having the potential, in the plant cell or cells, to express and control the expression of genetic information inserted thereby and those regions necessary for the production and accumulation of stable vector particles in the plant or plant cells. The production of a gene-derived product in a plant cell from the said at least a portion of an RNA vector is also described.