Antisense Technology: Concept to reality in crop improvement

Antisense Technology: Concept to reality in crop improvement

3^rd Annual Congress on Plant Biology & Agricultural Sciences
April 04, 2022 | Webinar

Uma Priya Kupusamy

Ministry of Science, Technology, and
Innovation, Malaysia

Abstract:

The global population was projected to increase alarmingly from 7.3 billion in 2015 to an estimation of 9.8 billion in 2050. Therefore, food production needs to be increased drastically to fulfill the nutritional demand of the growing population which calls for an efficient method of crop improvement. The most extensive and novel technology used in recent times is the antisense technology. The antisense technology includes RNA interference (RNAi) which is a gene regulatory strategy that is widely used for crop improvement. This technology plays important roles in generating high yielding, insect-resistant, high nutritional value and stress-tolerant crops. Over the years, RNAi has been proven to show improvement in rice crop production in combating many factors including abiotic and biotic stress. It has been shown to bring modification of several desired traits in this crop. The application of RNAi in controlling agricultural insect pests has been receiving much attention since the development of this technique. A recent study of developing BPH resistant rice varieties has proven to be one of the most effective and environmentally friendly strategies for protecting the rice crop using this technique. The brown planthopper (BPH), Nilaparvata lugens, is the most destructive rice insect pest causing significant yield loss globally. This study demonstrated that knockdown of β-1,3-glucanase in a susceptible rice cultivar, TN1 enhanced resistance to BPH. Two RNAi rice genotypes IR463, each using different constitutive promoters IR463 (CaM35S) and IR462 (maize Ubiquitin) were generated, as were their respective empty vector controls. Both RNAi lines significantly (p<0.05) decreased BPH survival and significantly (p<0.05) decreased the rate of development. Survival of insects on the RNAi lines decreased approximately to 50% as compared to their respective transformed empty vector lines and TN1, which were used as controls, with approximately only 30% BPH reaching adulthood on the RNAi lines compared to 75%-80% in the control lines. In summary, the IR463 and IR462 RNAi lines expressing significantly reduced levels of β-1,3-glucanaseenhanced resistance to BPH, so providing a sound strategy for breeding resistance rice varieties against BPH.

Biography:

Dr. Uma Priya is currently the Section Head of Proficiency Testing in the Chemical Metrology Division of the Department of Chemistry, a government agency under the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation Malaysia. She was the former Section Head of the Food Microbiology Laboratory with the same department for more than 15 years of experience in food and water microbiology testing. She is also involved in helping out in the Genetically Modified Organisms Section which plays an important role as then ASEAN Food Reference Laboratory (AFRL) for GM testing. She has extensive experience running an internationally accredited laboratory with an additional stint of 2 years in the DNA Forensic Laboratory and was responsible for human DNA testing for regulatory matters. Dr. Uma holds a PhD in Plant Molecular Biotechnology from Newcastle University, United Kingdom. She obtained her Masters in Environmental Management and Bachelors in Microbiology from the National University of Malaysia (UKM).

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