Abstract
Wheat and barley are the most highly produced and consumed grains in the world. Various pathogens—viruses, bacteria, fungi, insect pests, and nematode parasites—are major threats to yield and economic losses. Strategies for the management of disease control mainly depend on resistance or tolerance breeding, chemical control, and biological control. The discoveries of RNA silencing mechanisms provide a transgenic approach for disease management. Host-induced gene silencing (HIGS) employing RNA silencing mechanisms and, specifically, silencing the targets of invading pathogens, has been successfully applied in crop disease prevention. Here, we cover recent studies that indicate that HIGS is a valuable tool to protect wheat and barley from diseases in an environmentally friendly way.
Highlights
Cereal grains, including major cereal grains and other minor grains have provided over 56% of the caloric and 50% of the protein requirements in human diets for thousands of years, since their domestication
Based on the knowledge of the molecular patterns involved in plant–microbe interactions, genetically modified plants via transgene-based host-induced gene silencing (HIGS) may be a new effective, environmentally-friendly approach to controlling the crop diseases caused by parasitic pests, nematodes, viruses, and fungi
Host-induced gene silencing (HIGS) is a further development of virus induced gene silencing (VIGS) [9], which allows for the silencing of genes in plant pathogens by expressing an RNA interference (RNAi) construct against specific genes endogenous to the pathogen in the host plant
Summary
Cereal grains, including major cereal grains (e.g., wheat and rice) and other minor grains (e.g., barley and oats) have provided over 56% of the caloric and 50% of the protein requirements in human diets for thousands of years, since their domestication. The development of modern agricultural science and technology greatly reduced the yield loss, an average of 10–15% of the global crop production (more than 300 million tons) is still threatened by plant diseases [3,4]. Crop plants are subject to diseases caused by parasitic insects, nematode parasites, pathogenic viruses, bacteria, oomycetes, and fungi. Crop yields and their associated economic losses are major global concerns in modern agriculture. Based on the knowledge of the molecular patterns involved in plant–microbe interactions, genetically modified plants via transgene-based host-induced gene silencing (HIGS) may be a new effective, environmentally-friendly approach to controlling the crop diseases caused by parasitic pests, nematodes, viruses, and fungi
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