Current agricultural output is challenged by considerable losses in crop yield and post-harvest storage due to fungal infection. Traditional chemical fungicides used to treat these fungi can be ineffective and harmful to the environment if not used properly. With fungicide resistance increasing in fungal pathogens, new environmentally friendly and sustainable technologies are required to manage diseases on the world's most important crops. RNA interference (RNAi) is an intrinsic cellular mechanism, mediated by double-stranded RNA (dsRNA), which can suppress protein expression through targeted destruction of mRNAs. With recent advances in dsRNA delivery or expression in plants, this mechanism has the potential to provide alternative disease management strategies. Examples of RNAi-based control to manage pathogenic fungal species are steadily increasing, and the technology offers new options to increase species-specificity and/or potency against fungi for which existing fungicides have been ineffective. RNAi technology can be adapted to provide either robust and multi-crop plant protection using topical sprays or can provide more durable resistance through transgene expression of dsRNAs within susceptible plant tissues. Using RNA sequencing to identify fungal gene targets, RNAi-based control technology continues to show promise as an alternative to traditional agrochemicals for crop protection.
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