Journal article

Publication year: 2019

Journal: Viruses

Volume number: 11

Issue number: 7

eISSN: 1999-4915

Open access status: Gold

DOI Link: https://doi.org/10.3390/v11070673

Publisher: MDPI

Abstract: 
Viruses are obligate parasites which cause a range of severe plant diseases that affect farm productivity around the world, resulting in immense annual losses of yield. Therefore, control of viral pathogens continues to be an agronomic and scientific challenge requiring innovative and ground-breaking strategies to meet the demands of a growing world population. Over the last decade, RNA silencing has been employed to develop plants with an improved resistance to biotic stresses based on their function to provide protection from invasion by foreign nucleic acids, such as viruses. This natural phenomenon can be exploited to control agronomically relevant plant diseases. Recent evidence argues that this biotechnological method, called host-induced gene silencing, is effective against sucking insects, nematodes, and pathogenic fungi, as well as bacteria and viruses on their plant hosts. Here, we review recent studies which reveal the enormous potential that RNA-silencing strategies hold for providing an environmentally friendly mechanism to protect crop plants from viral diseases.

Harvard Citation style: Gaffar, F. and Koch, A. (2019) Catch Me If You Can! RNA Silencing-Based Improvement of Antiviral Plant Immunity, Viruses, 11(7), Article 673. https://doi.org/10.3390/v11070673

APA Citation style: Gaffar, F., & Koch, A. (2019). Catch Me If You Can! RNA Silencing-Based Improvement of Antiviral Plant Immunity. Viruses. 11(7), Article 673. https://doi.org/10.3390/v11070673