RNAi技术在作物品质改良中的应用

Application of RNA Interference Technology in Crop Quality Improvement

RNA干涉(RNAi)是由同源性内源或外源dsRNA引起的序列特异性基因沉默现象,在动、植物和真菌中广泛存在并被证实。目前已应用RNAi技术在改善油脂的品质、改良淀粉品质、提高营养物质或降低有害物质含量、提高抗褐化能力、提高果实耐贮性、进行代谢调控以获得目的次生代谢物等方面进行了作物品质改良研究。作为一种下调表达技术,该技术在研究植物基因功能和改良作物品质等领域有良好的应用前景。重点从上述六个方面对近年来应用RNAi技术在作物品质改良研究方面进行了回顾并对其存在的问题作了初步探讨。

RNA interference （RNAi） is a phenomenon of special post-transcriptional gene silencing mediated by induced dsRNA with endogenous or exogenous homogenous sequences, a lot of researches have been applied to demonstrate it as a reserved mechanism for gene regulation in animals, plants and fungi. In the past decade, RNAi aimed at composition of crop for nutrition improvement had been developed and tested, which included improving the quality of fat, oils and starch , improving crop quality through altering composition of crop, elevating anti-browning nature, prolonging fruit-store, procuring secondary metabolite by metabolism regulation. This technology, as a knockdown technology, has been applied to a wide range of species to research plant gene function, silence the expression of specific genes for crop genetics breeding and offers alternative approaches for improving crop quality. The progress and potential of these approaches and studies mentioned above were reviewed and the problem about RNAi technology also was preliminarily discussed.