Patent ID: 7741531

Claim:
A method of producing a plant cell resistant to a phytopathogenic fungus, comprising the following steps: a) introducing into a plant cell a construct comprising: a promoter regulatory sequence that is functional in the plant cell, operably linked to a DNA sequence which, when it is transcribed, generates an RNA molecule comprising at least a sense sequence and an antisense sequence which are at least partially complementary, said sense sequence comprising a sequence essentially homologous to a fungal gene essential to the fungus or to its phytopathogenicity, said antisense sequence comprising a sequence essentially homologous to the sequence complementary to said fungal gene, wherein said RNA molecule targets said fungal gene, and a terminator regulatory sequence, resulting in a transformed plant cell; b) placing the transformed cell in culture under conditions that allow the transcription of the construct, and c) selecting the transformed cell that is resistant to the phytopathogenic fungus.