Helicoverpa resistant chickpea plants: from Bt toxins to plant-mediated RNAi

Khatodia, S. and Bhatotia, K. and Behl, R.K. (2017) Helicoverpa resistant chickpea plants: from Bt toxins to plant-mediated RNAi. Ekin Journal of Crop Breeding and Genetics, 3 (1). pp. 52-60.

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Abstract

Helicoverpa armigera, the pod borer is a major constraint to global chickpea production. Genetic improvement of chickpea for insect resistance by traditional methods has been hampered by narrow genetic diversity in the elite gene pool. Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) chickpea plants expressing Bt genes as well as pyramids also have been developed already and many are in field trials. But, already available Bt crops like cotton have increased the insect resistance to transgenic plants in H. armigera. Although Bt chickpeas have yet to be commercialized, but the sustainability of Btcrops is vulnerable to the insect resistance in Helicoverpa. The next generation approach for crop protection against Helicoverpa is to knock down the crucial physiology-related genes of insect pests using transgenic plants, which is called Plant-mediated RNAinterference (RNAi). Common small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) for the target genes of H. armigera, designed in silico could be used to study the lethal effect of down-regulating crucial target genes in chickpea. This review describes the progress of developing resistance to H. armigera in chickpea using Bt toxin genes and the future prospects of using plant-mediated RNAi for H. armigera resistance. The plant-mediated RNAi approach holds great promise for future development but further studies will be required to optimize RNAi-based strategies for chickpea protection against H. armigera using integrated pest management strategies.

Item Type: Article
Uncontrolled Keywords: Chickpea, Bt toxin, Plant-mediated RNAi, siRNA, Helicoverpa
Author Affiliation: Amity Institute of Biotechnology, Amity University Haryana, Gurgaon, 122413 India
Subjects: Crop Improvement
Divisions: Chickpea
Depositing User: Mr T L Gautham
Date Deposited: 11 Aug 2017 09:37
Last Modified: 11 Aug 2017 09:37
URI: http://eprints.icrisat.ac.in/id/eprint/14930

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