When an Intruder Comes Home: GM and GE Strategies to Combat Virus Infection in Plants

Adeeb Rahman, Neeti Sanan-Mishra

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

2 Scopus citations

Abstract

Viruses are silent enemies that intrude and take control of the plant cell’s machinery for their own multiplication. Infection by viruses and the resulting damage is still a major challenge in the agriculture sector. Plants have the capability to fight back, but the ability of viruses to mutate at a fast rate helps them to evade the host’s response. Therefore, classical approaches for introgressing resistance genes by breeding have obtained limited success in counteracting the virus menace. Genetic modification (GM)-based strategies have been successful in engineering artificial resistance in plants. Several different approaches based on pathogen-derived resistance, antisense constructs, hairpin RNAs, double-stranded RNA, etc., have been used to enhance plants’ resistance to viruses. Recently, genome editing (GE) strategies mainly involving the CRISPR/Cas-mediated modifications are being used for virus control. In this review, we discuss the developments and advancements in GM- and GE-based methods for tackling viral infection in plants.

Original languageEnglish
Article number282
JournalAgriculture (Switzerland)
Volume14
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - Feb 2024
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • RNA silencing
  • artificial miRNA
  • epigenetic editing
  • multiplexing CRISPR/Cas editing
  • pathogen-derived resistance
  • prime editing
  • tasiRNA

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