Abstract

Plant parasitic nematodes are major threat for crop plants and cause severe economic losses worldwide annually. Various strategies deployed for the control of these notorious parasites has resulted either in limited success, or having huge negative impact on environment. RNA interference (RNAi) is a gene-silencing phenomenon that is conserved in various eukaryotes. Experimentally induced RNAi is highly specific and potent, leading to its wide utilization in functional studies for exploring gene functions. Crops engineered through RNAi have proven to be successful in protection against pest and parasites, including nematodes. Engineering nematode resistance in crop plants through host-derived RNAi is largely based on the selection of target gene. The expression of nematode specific dsRNA in plants generates siRNAs and taken up by nematodes on feeding. Depending upon the function, level of expression and silencing efficacy of the target gene, resistance was determined. RNAi seems to be promising in many aspects, such as providing durable resistance to crops against plant parasitic nematodes in the near future. In the present article, we have reviewed the published work on the host-derived RNAi for developing nematode resistance in plants.

Highlights

  • Plant parasitic nematodes (PPN) are major agricultural pests, which infest almost all cultivated crop plants causing drastic economic loss estimated as ~ 157 billion US$ [1]

  • RNA interference (RNAi) operates at transcriptional, as well as post-transcriptional for gene silencing, which has been previously reported as cosuppression in plants [8], and quelling in fungus [9]

  • Induction of RNAi by delivering dsRNA has been successful in non-parasitic nematode, Caenorhabditis elegans, and majority of its genes has been characterized using this technique [16]

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Summary

Introduction

Plant parasitic nematodes (PPN) are major agricultural pests, which infest almost all cultivated crop plants causing drastic economic loss estimated as ~ 157 billion US$ [1]. Root knot nematodes are able to attack wide range of crops (~ 2000), while each species of cyst nematodes has a narrow host range. These parasites invade plant roots as mobile infective second juvenile stage (J2) to reach plant vascular cylinder, where they migrate intercellularly (root-knot nematode), or intracellularly (Cyst nematode), to become sedentary and induce the formation of feeding cells that supports the development and reproduction of females over a period of few weeks. Depending on the nematode species, the feeding cells either develop into specialized multinucleate giant cells (root-knot nematode) or syncytia (cyst nematode), by inducing mitosis without cytokinesis, leading to the formation of galls and subsequently, plant dies after several cycles of nematode infection [3,4,5]

Nematode Control Strategies and their Limitations
RNAi Mechanism
RNAi as a Powerful Functional Genomics Tool
Target mRNA degradation
Nematode Target Genes
Reduction in gall number
Genes involved in development and reproduction
Nematode responsive host plant genes
Findings
Advantages of Using RNAi Technology for PPN Control
Full Text
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