AUTHOR=Liu Fangzhou , Yang Bin , Zhang Aihong , Ding Derong , Wang Guirong 

TITLE=Plant-Mediated RNAi for Controlling Apolygus lucorum

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Plant Science

VOLUME=10

YEAR=2019

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/plant-science/articles/10.3389/fpls.2019.00064

DOI=10.3389/fpls.2019.00064

ISSN=1664-462X

ABSTRACT=<p>The polyphagous mirid bug <italic>Apolygus lucorum</italic> (Heteroptera: Miridae) is a serious pest of agricultural crops in China, with more than 200 species of host plants including two very important crops, maize and soybean. Currently, prevention and control of <italic>A. lucorum</italic> rely mainly on chemical pesticides that cause environmental as well as health related problems. Plant-mediated RNAi has proven to offer great potential for pest control in the past decade. In this study, we screened and obtained seven candidate genes (<italic>Aluc</italic>β<italic>-actin, AlucV-ATPase-A/D/E, AlucEif5A, AlucEcR-A, AlucIAP</italic>) by injection-based RNAi which produced <italic>A. lucorum</italic> mortality rates of 46.01–82.32% at day 7 after injection. Among them, the plant-mediated RNAi of <italic>AlucV-ATPase-E</italic> was successfully introduced into transgenic maize and soybean, and the populations of <italic>A. lucorum</italic> were significantly decreased following feeding on the transgenic maize and soybean. These results are intended to provide helpful insight into the generation of bug-resistant plants through a plant-mediated RNAi strategy.</p>