Methods and materials for conferring resistance to pests and pathogens of corn

摘要

Methods and materials for conferring pest resistance to plants are provided. Plants are transformed with a silencing construct homologous to a gene of a plant pest that is essential for the survival, development, or pathogenicity of the pest. This results in the plant producing RNAi to the selected gene, which, when ingested by the pest results in silencing of the gene and a subsequent reduction of the pest's ability to harm the plant. In other embodiments, the pest's reduced ability to harm the plant is passed on to pest progeny. Methods and materials for depathogenesis of pests is also provided.

主权项

1. A method for conferring pest resistance to a plant comprising a step of selecting a first pest pathogenicity gene, a step of selecting a second pest pathogenicity gene, a step of transforming a host plant cell with a heterologous polynucleotide, and a step of regenerating the plant from the host plant cell, said heterologous polynucleotide comprising:
(a) a first antisense sequence having at least 80% homology to the first pest pathogenicity gene; (b) a second antisense sequence having at least 80% homology to the second pest pathogenicity gene; (c) a first sense sequence substantially complementary to said first antisense sequence; and (d) a second sense sequence substantially complementary to said second antisense sequence; wherein: a transcript of the heterologous polynucleotide is capable of hybridizing to form a double-stranded region comprising nucleotides encoded by the first antisense sequence and the first sense sequence; the transcript is capable of hybridizing to form a double-stranded region comprising nucleotides encoded by the second antisense sequence and the second sense sequence; the plant is a corn; the first pest pathogenicity gene is a fungus pathogenicity gene; and the second pest pathogenicity gene is a gene from a pest selected from the group consisting of insects, bacteria, fungi, and nematodes; whereby the plant is resistant to a first fungus expressing at least one gene having substantial homology to the first antisense sequence.