Title : RNAi- mediated plant protection: Unraveling the molecular mechanisms underlying Identification of the molecular components of the the HIGSHost- nduced gene
Abstract:
In plants, RNA silencing strategies have the potential to protect host plants against predation or infection by pathogens and pests mediated by lethal RNA silencing signals generated in planta (Koch et al. 2013). In addition to the generation of RNA silencing signals in planta, plants can be protected from pathogens and pests by exogenously applied RNA biopesticides (Koch et al. 2016).
Despite the promising potential of RNA silencing-based disease control and its benefits for agronomy and the ecosystem, the mechanisms underlying HIGS and SIGS technologies are virtually unresolved. There is little information about the contribution of either plant or fungal silencing machineries in cross-species RNA silencing (,i.e. plant and fungus) or the nature of the inhibitory RNA that translocate from the plant to the fungus after its transgenic expression or spray application. Addressing these questions is a central scientific goal of our research and key for making RNA silencing-based strategies a realistic and sustainable approach in agriculture.
Therefore, we currently aim to identify and further characterize plant and fungal RNA silencing-associated factors that are involved in HIGS and SIGS. In this context, we are testing Arabidopsis RNA silencing mutants expressing CYP3RNA to elucidate their role in the mechanistic basis of HIGS. Moreover, as we have shown that the fungal RNA silencing machinery also contributes to SIGS (Koch et al. 2016, Gaffar et al. 2018), we systematically included fungal FgAGO and FgDCL knock-out mutants in our HIGS and SIGS assays. In addition to this genetic approach, we aim to determine the specific Arabidopsis, barley as well as Fusarium AGO protein(s) that is/are associated with HIGS and SIGS using a biochemical approach
