Method of alleviating pest infestation in plants

摘要

There is provided a method of alleviating pest infestation of plants, which method comprises a) identifying a DNA sequence from said pest which is critical either for its survival, growth, proliferation or reproduction, b) cloning said sequence from step a) or a fragment thereof in a suitable vector relative to one or more promoters capable of transcribing said sequence to RNA or dsRNA upon binding of an appropriate transcription factor to said promoters, and c) introducing said vector into the plant.;Thus, advantageously, the method according to the invention provides a particularly selective mechanism for alleviating pest infestation, and in some cases parasitic infestation of plants, such that when the pest feeds on the plant it will digest the expressed dsRNA in the plant thus inhibiting the expression of the DNA within the pest which is critical for its growth, survival, proliferation or reproduction. The DNA sequence or fragment thereof according to the invention may be cloned between two tissue specific promoters, such as two root specific promoters.