Dissection of gene function by RNA silencing

Abstract

The RNA silencing technique is an effective tool to examine the biological function of the target mRNA in plants. The recent development of versatile-type RNAi vectors, which are driven by constitutive promoters, and GATEWAY™ cloning technology makes it easy to construct the RNAi vectors with trigger sequences and to analyze the function of a target gene. Although these vectors are highly useful, constitutive defects of the target mRNA expression sometimes result in lethality or seed abortion. Here, we summarize recent approaches to RNA silencing research designed to overcome these difficulties and to dissect gene expression.