Host-induced gene silencing inhibits the biotrophic pathogen causing downy mildew of lettuce.

Host-induced gene silencing (HIGS) is an RNA interference-based approach in which small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) are produced in the host plant and subsequently move into the pathogen to silence pathogen genes. As a proof-of-concept, we generated stable transgenic lettuce plants expressing siRNAs targeting potentially vital genes of Bremia lactucae, a biotrophic oomycete that causes downy mildew, the most important disease of lettuce worldwide. Transgenic plants, expressing inverted repeats of fragments of either the Highly Abundant Message #34 (HAM34) or Cellulose Synthase (CES1) genes of B. lactucae, specifically suppressed expression of these genes, resulting in greatly reduced growth and inhibition of sporulation of B. lactucae. This demonstrates that HIGS can provide effective control of B. lactucae in lettuce; such control does not rely on ephemeral resistance conferred by major resistance genes and therefore offers new opportunities for durable control of diverse diseases in numerous crops.

• Publication year

  2015

• Venue

  Plant Biotechnology Journal

• Publication date

  2015-09-01

• Fields of study

  Biology, Medicine, Environmental Science

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1111/pbi.12307PMID 25487781
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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