RNAi Technology Utilization in Plant Breeding

Availability of sustainable food and feed depends largely upon the presence of climate resilient crop species and cultivars, which can cope better with the stressful environments and ensure the food security for increasing global population. Abiotic and biotic stressors trigger detrimental impacts on overall crop production. Hence, developing elite crop cultivars with better adaptation and resilience to the global climatic anomalies is an ultimate choice for crop breeders. Integration of modern biotechnological approaches in the current classical breeding programs can aid the plant breeders to bred crop cultivars with better qualitative and quantitative traits. Non-coding small RNAsNon-coding small RNAs have been known to actively participate in combating abiotic and biotic stressesBiotic stress, controlling tissue developments and differentiation, signal transmission, and phytohormonal interactions in plants. During last copule of decades, the utilization ofDouble-stranded RNAs (dsRNAs) double-stranded RNAs (dsRNAs) and RNA-interference (RNAi)RNA interference (RNAi) techniques has been becoming an alternative to the genetic transformationGenetic transformation methods. In the recent years, RNAi-based approaches have become highly efficient and commanding tool in functional genomicsGenomics of many crop improvement programs. These tools have been proven highly effective to develop many crop cultivars by silencing of specific genes against insect, pests and diseases and to integrate novel traitsTraits to uplift their nutritional status. In this chapter the prominence of RNAi tools and their practical applications in crop breeding is appraised for certain traits.