BANFF, Alta. — Advances in genetic research could reduce the need for powerful fungicides to control common grain diseases.
RNA Interference technology has been used to “switch off” genes and help scientists learn more about what is happening at the cellular level of plants.
“It is good at shutting down messages so it is a very good tool that we use in the lab as molecular biologists to shut down genes and study genes,” said Agriculture Canada researcher John Laurie.
“We can learn what genes actually do in the cell,” he said at the Prairie Cereal Summit held in Banff Dec. 13.
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Working at the Lethbridge Research Centre, Laurie has studied the RNAi pathway into the smut and bunt fungi affecting barley and wheat. It is still not an exact science as the short strand of RNA searches for the right genes but improvements are steady.
These diseases had devastating affects on crops until fungicides were introduced.
“We want to use RNAi and apply it as a seed coating to prevent smut and other diseases,” he said.
“We think it is important to move away from using toxic fungicides on seeds from an environmental perspective.”
Using the technology, scientists can also study the disease path and understand how it causes infection.
Spores are released into the atmosphere at harvest and attach to healthy seeds. They germinate and form spores that grow like yeast. When they meet other yeast-like buds, they fuse and form a structure to penetrate the seed and then infect the plant.
This knowledge helped Laurie’s team when they found a smut line that was expressing a marker gene called GUS. Using double-stranded RNA, that gene was knocked down to block the formation of the infection.
“This was an effective technique to stop the development of the disease,” he said.
Besides targeting smut and bunt, RNAi seed coating could also help synchronize a crop, make it heat- or cold-tolerant or encourage roots to go deeper.
