The application of antisense technology for crop improvement: A review

Abstract

The global population is increasing alarmingly, which calls for efficient methods of food production. Since domestication, people have been working on improving food crops for production and productivity. Genetic modification is one of the methods under use. Antisense technology, which includes antisense RNA (asRNA) and RNA interference (RNAi), is a gene regulatory strategy that is widely used for crop improvement. asRNA and RNAi mediated gene silencing is effective methods for regulating undesirable organic phenomena with no genomic alteration of the target gene by base pairing between asRNA and mRNA targets. Crops modified by engineering novel RNA interference and asRNA pathways allow small RNA molecules to alter organic phenomenon. Antisense technology plays an important role in generating high yielding, disease and pest resistant, high nutritional value, and stress-tolerant crop varieties. This review encompasses research articles on the two important antisense technologies to which RNAi (93%) was frequently used for crop improvement as compared to the asRNA (7%) technology. Regarding the crops improved using antisense technology, vegetables (41%) took the first attention. Most of the research articles reviewed were on improving crops for biotic stress resistance (29.6%), followed by fruit improvement and enhancing ABOUT THE AUTHOR Tadesse Tilahun, the first author, was born in 1988 in Ethiopia. He received a Bachelor of Sciences (BSc) degree in Applied Biology from

SaRCC1, a Regulator of Chromosome Condensation 1 (RCC1) Family Protein Gene from Spartina alterniflora, Negatively Regulates Salinity Stress Tolerance in Transgenic Arabidopsis

“…In this study, to understand the possible biological role of SaRCC1 , transgenic Arabidopsis lines overexpressing sense or antisense SaRCC1 RNA were constructed. As one of the antisense technologies, antisense expression of a target gene can serve as a tool to study the effect of a particular plant gene inactivation and the functional role of genes in plant diverse processes [ 28 , 29 ]. For example, antisense expression of pectate lyase gene or β-galactosidase gene alters the softening of strawberry fruit [ 30 , 31 ].…”

The Function of RNA Interference (RNAi) in Crop Enhancement- Mechanism and Applications: A Review

“…Following transcription, a spacer creates a hairpin RNA's loop and inverted repeat sequences produce a dsRNA structure known as the stem (Fig. 2) Since Escherichia coli cannot replicate inverted repeat sequences without a spacer, the spacer sequence makes it easier to produce an RNAi vector [6,[15][16][17][18][19][20].…”

“…Cotton leaf curl virus, which contains a sense transcript BC1 that may cause pathogenicity symptoms, affects cotton, one of the major cash crops. A BC1 antisense construct was inserted into the Nicotiana tabacum plant, and upon expression, the BC1 anti-transgenic tobacco exhibited resistance against the Begomovirus-causing viruliferous whitefly (Bemisia tabaci) [15].…”