RNA Interference: A Novel Technology for Virus Disease Management in Crop Plants

Abstract

RNAs play a significant role in regulating gene expression and their principal areas have been exploited for the control of plant viruses by the discovery of RNA silencing mechanism. RNA silencing or RNA interference (RNAi) is an innovative mechanism that regulates and restricts the amount of transcripts either by suppressing transcription (TGS) or by the degradation of sequence-specific RNA. RNAi can be used effectively to study the role of genes in a variety of eukaryotic organisms by reverse genetics. The technology has been employed in several fields such as drug resistance, therapeutics, development of genetically modified animals for research and transgenic plants targeting plant viruses. In plants, small interfering RNAs (siRNA) are the characteristic of 21 to 22 bp long dsRNA, which has been recognized by the regulatory mechanism of RNAi and leads to the sequence-specific degradation of target mRNA. In addition to virus disease control, RNAi can also be used to control mycotoxins and plant diseases caused by other organisms. This review enhances our current knowledge of RNAi and its larger applications in agriculture, specifically in plant virus disease management.

Viral Nanoparticles‐Mediated Delivery of Therapeutic Cargo

“…[ 22 ] BMV has been used as a gene vector for the transference and expression of a bacterial drug‐resistance gene. [ 23 ] Moreover, self‐assembly and a dynamic structure make BMV a promising nanoparticle that has been applied for several medical purposes, such as chemotherapeutic drug delivery. Yildiz et al used a cysteine substitution that contained 30 mutants of BMV (cBMV) displaying 180 cysteine residues.…”