RNAi as a tool to enhance crop yield and biotic stress management in the plants

Abiotic and biotic stresses severely affect plant growth and yield. However, plants can adapt to biotic stresses by reprogramming gene expression at the transcriptional and post-transcriptional levels. Recently, the exogenous application of RNA interference (RNAi) technology is making good progress and offering a possible alternative to genetic transformation for combating biotic stresses in plants. In this process, the RNAi regulates the transcript level by transcriptional gene silencing (suppression transcription) or post-transcriptional gene silencing (activating sequence-specific RNA degradation). The use of RNAi tools and their respective targets against various biotic stresses has been reported in many agronomic crops. Spray-induced gene silencing is a recent advancement that uses dsRNA as a trigger to silence target genes in pathogens, however, the carrier is needed to stabilise the RNA for a longer period and to reach the target pathogen. In this review, we focus on the synthesis of RNAi constructs and their potential applications against biotic stressors in different crop species.