Full crop protection from an insect pest by expression of long double-stranded RNAs in plastids

Abstract

Bypassing a plant's defense for pest defense Colorado potato beetles can skeletonize the leaves on a potato plant, devastating crop yields. Insecticides are increasingly useless as the beetle evolves resistance. Zhang et al. used RNA interference to take down this beetle (see the Perspective by Whyard). Success required shifting production of the double-stranded RNA to the plastids to evade the plant's own RNA management mechanisms. The insect's own RNA interference mechanisms then inactivated two everyday genes that the beetle can't do without. Science , this issue p. 991 ; see also p. 950