An RNAi-Based Control of Fusarium graminearum Infections Through Spraying of Long dsRNAs Involves a Plant Passage and Is Controlled by the Fungal Silencing Machinery

Meeting the increasing food and energy demands of a growing population will require the development of ground-breaking strategies that promote sustainable plant production. Host-induced gene silencing has shown great potential for controlling pest and diseases in crop plants. However, while delivery...

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Published in:	PLoS pathogens Vol. 12; no. 10; p. e1005901
Main Authors:	Koch, Aline, Biedenkopf, Dagmar, Furch, Alexandra, Weber, Lennart, Rossbach, Oliver, Abdellatef, Eltayb, Linicus, Lukas, Johannsmeier, Jan, Jelonek, Lukas, Goesmann, Alexander, Cardoza, Vinitha, McMillan, John, Mentzel, Tobias, Kogel, Karl-Heinz
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	English
Published:	United States Public Library of Science 01-10-2016 Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Subjects:	Barley Bioinformatics Biological Control Agents - administration & dosage Biology Biology and Life Sciences Biosynthesis Blotting, Northern Carbon radioisotopes Crop diseases Crops Disease control Funding Fungal infections Fusariosis - prevention & control Fusarium Fusarium graminearum Gene expression Genes Genetic aspects Hordeum - genetics Hordeum - parasitology Land use Machinery Medicine and Health Sciences Microscopy Microscopy, Confocal Nutrition Pathogens Pest control Pest Control, Biological - methods Plant diseases Plant Diseases - prevention & control Plant production Plant protection Plant sciences Plant species Plants, Genetically Modified RNA RNA Interference RNA, Double-Stranded - administration & dosage RNA, Small Interfering - administration & dosage Transgenic plants North Carolina United States > US
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Summary:	Meeting the increasing food and energy demands of a growing population will require the development of ground-breaking strategies that promote sustainable plant production. Host-induced gene silencing has shown great potential for controlling pest and diseases in crop plants. However, while delivery of inhibitory noncoding double-stranded (ds)RNA by transgenic expression is a promising concept, it requires the generation of transgenic crop plants which may cause substantial delay for application strategies depending on the transformability and genetic stability of the crop plant species. Using the agronomically important barley-Fusarium graminearum pathosystem, we alternatively demonstrate that a spray application of a long noncoding dsRNA (791 nt CYP3-dsRNA), which targets the three fungal cytochrome P450 lanosterol C-14α-demethylases, required for biosynthesis of fungal ergosterol, inhibits fungal growth in the directly sprayed (local) as well as the non-sprayed (distal) parts of detached leaves. Unexpectedly, efficient spray-induced control of fungal infections in the distal tissue involved passage of CYP3-dsRNA via the plant vascular system and processing into small interfering (si)RNAs by fungal DICER-LIKE 1 (FgDCL-1) after uptake by the pathogen. We discuss important consequences of this new finding on future RNA-based disease control strategies. Given the ease of design, high specificity, and applicability to diverse pathogens, the use of target-specific dsRNA as an anti-fungal agent offers unprecedented potential as a new plant protection strategy.
Bibliography:	ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 I have read the journal's policy and the fact that the authors VC, JM, and TM are employed by a commercial company BASF Resesarch Triangle Park and BASF Limburgerhof does not alter our adherence to all PLOS Pathogens policies on sharing data and materials. Conceptualization: AK KHK. Data curation: LJ AG VC JM TM. Formal analysis: AK AF LJ VC JM TM. Funding acquisition: KHK TM. Investigation: AK AF DB LW OR LL JJ EA. Methodology: AK KHK. Project administration: AK KHK. Resources: KHK AG VC JM TM. Software: LJ AG VC JM TM. Supervision: AK KHK. Validation: AK AF KHK. Visualization: AK AF. Writing – original draft: AK KHK. Writing – review & editing: KHK AK.
ISSN:	1553-7374 1553-7366 1553-7374
DOI:	10.1371/journal.ppat.1005901