Full crop protection from an insect pest by expression of long double-stranded RNAs in plastids
- Resource Type
- Authors
- Ralph Bock; Stephanie Ruf; David G. Heckel; Sher Afzal Khan; Claudia Hasse; Jiang Zhang
- Source
- Science. 347:991-994
- Subject
- Transformation (genetics)
Multidisciplinary
RNA interference
Colorado potato beetle
Botany
RNA
Biology
Plastid
biology.organism_classification
Genome
Gene
Cell biology
Transplastomic plant
- Language
- ISSN
- 1095-9203
0036-8075
Bypassing a plant's defense for pest defense Colorado potato beetles can skeletonize the leaves on a potato plant, devastating crop yields. Insecticides are increasingly useless as the beetle evolves resistance. Zhang et al. used RNA interference to take down this beetle (see the Perspective by Whyard). Success required shifting production of the double-stranded RNA to the plastids to evade the plant's own RNA management mechanisms. The insect's own RNA interference mechanisms then inactivated two everyday genes that the beetle can't do without. Science , this issue p. 991 ; see also p. 950