Abstract
Post-transcriptional gene silencing (PTGS), a sequence-specific RNA degradation mechanism inherent in many life-forms, can be induced in plants by transforming them with either antisense1 or co-suppression2 constructs, but typically this results in only a small proportion of silenced individuals. Here we show that gene constructs encoding intron-spliced RNA with a hairpin structure can induce PTGS with almost 100% efficiency when directed against viruses or endogenous genes. These constructs could prove valuable in reverse genetics, genomics, engineering of metabolic pathways and protection against pathogens.
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Smith, N., Singh, S., Wang, MB. et al. Total silencing by intron-spliced hairpin RNAs. Nature 407, 319–320 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1038/35030305
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/35030305
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