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RNAi Technology: A Potential Tool in Plant Breeding

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Advances in Plant Breeding Strategies: Breeding, Biotechnology and Molecular Tools

Abstract

Traditional plant breeding has been very successful in producing agricultural crops with many desirable traits. However, it is a time-consuming process with limited genetic resources, which is restricted to closely related species for crossing. RNA interference (RNAi) technology presents a new potential tool for plant breeding by introducing small non-coding RNA sequences with the ability to switch-off gene expression in a sequence-specific manner. The ability to suppress expression of a specific gene provides an opportunity to acquire a new trait by eliminating or accumulating certain plant traits, leading to biochemical or phenotypic changes that do not exist in non-transgenic plants. RNAi is an ancient evolutionary mechanism adopted by plants as a defense strategy against foreign invading genes but is used today as a tool for generating new quality traits in organisms. In this chapter, we review RNAi applications in plants to acquire new traits, which are difficult to obtain through traditional breeding and present the potential of combining this technology with conventional breeding to overcome the current challenges facing agriculture such as: abiotic stress, biotic stress, nutritional value, allergens, secondary metabolites and flower traits.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biology, Taibah University, Al-Jamaat Street, Al-Madinah, 30002, Saudi Arabia

    Mohammad Abhary

  2. Department of Agricultural Biotechnology, College Agriculture and Food Science, King Faisal University, Al-Hassa, 31982, Saudi Arabia

    Adel Rezk

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  1. Mohammad Abhary
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  1. Department of Agricultural Biotechnology, King Faisal University, Al-Hassa, Saudi Arabia

    Jameel M. Al-Khayri

  2. University of Helsinki , 00014 HELSINKI, Finland

    Shri Mohan Jain

  3. Cincinnati, Ohio, USA

    Dennis V. Johnson

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Abhary, M., Rezk, A. (2015). RNAi Technology: A Potential Tool in Plant Breeding. In: Al-Khayri, J., Jain, S., Johnson, D. (eds) Advances in Plant Breeding Strategies: Breeding, Biotechnology and Molecular Tools. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-22521-0_14

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