Howard, J.D., Beghyn, M., Dewulf, N. et al. (8 more authors) (2022) Chemically modified dsRNA induces RNAi effects in insects in vitro and in vivo: a potential new tool for improving RNA-based plant protection. Journal of Biological Chemistry, 298 (9). 102311. ISSN 0021-9258
Abstract
Global agriculture loses over $100 billion of produce annually to crop pests such as insects. Many of these crop pests either are not currently controlled by artificial means or have developed resistance against chemical pesticides. Long dsRNAs are capable of inducing RNAi in insects and are emerging as novel, highly selective alternatives for sustainable insect management strategies. However, there are significant challenges associated with RNAi efficacy in insects. In this study, we synthesized a range of chemically modified long dsRNAs in an approach to improve nuclease resistance and RNAi efficacy in insects. Our results showed that dsRNAs containing phosphorothioate modifications demonstrated increased resistance to southern green stink bug saliva nucleases. Phosphorothioate-modified and 2′-fluoro-modified dsRNA also demonstrated increased resistance to degradation by soil nucleases and increased RNAi efficacy in Drosophila melanogaster cell cultures. In live insects, we found chemically modified long dsRNAs successfully resulted in mortality in both stink bug and corn rootworm. These results provide further mechanistic insight into the dependence of RNAi efficacy on nucleotide modifications in the sense or antisense strand of the dsRNA in insects and demonstrate for the first time that RNAi can successfully be triggered by chemically modified long dsRNAs in insect cells or live insects.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2022 The Authors. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Keywords: | dsRNA; RNAi; insect RNAi; RNA chemical modifications; dsRNA insecticides; dsRNA biocontrols |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Engineering (Sheffield) > Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering (Sheffield) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number BIOTECHNOLOGY AND BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES RESEARCH COUNCIL BB/M012166/1 Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council BB/N504099/1 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 24 Oct 2022 11:30 |
Last Modified: | 24 Oct 2022 11:30 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Elsevier BV |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1016/j.jbc.2022.102311 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:192475 |