分子植物育种，2006 年，第4 卷，第6(S)期，第83-90 页
Molecular Plant Breeding, 2006, Vol.4, No.6(S), 83-90

卢东长城1,2 梁荣奇2*
1 首都师范大学生命科学学院, 北京, 100037; 2 北京市农林科学院北京农业生物技术研究中心, 北京, 100097
* 通讯作者, liangrq@hotmail.com
摘要Fire 等(1998)发现在线虫中双链RNA 可以有效地阻断同源基因的表达，并将这一现象称为RNA干扰(RNA interference, RNAi)，从而获得了2006 年的诺贝尔生理学/ 医学奖。RNA 干扰是指由双链RNA 引发的专一性沉默同源基因的现象，它可以专一性降解同源基因的mRNA 或修饰同源基因的启动子。目前有3 种转基因方法可以引起植物内源基因的RNA 沉默：产生双链RNA 转录本的反向重复RNAi (IR-RNA)、反义RNA (anti-sense RNA)技术和正义过量表达外源基因(sense RNA)。RNAi 技术作为一种下调表达技术，现在已经开始应用于许多作物的遗传改良以及外来病毒的基因沉默。本文综述了目前RNAi 技术在作物重要功能基因的鉴定、抗病毒作物的培育、降低有害物质含量或提高有益物质含量以改良作物品质、增加工业原料的含量等方面的研究进展。随着人们对作物代谢调控和RNAi 机制的进一步认识，RNAi 技术必将在作物遗传育种中得到更为广泛地应用。
关键词RNA 干扰, 遗传育种, 小干扰RNA, 功能基因组

RNAi and its Applications in Crop Genetics and Breeding
Lu Dongchangcheng1,2 Liang Rongqi2*
1 College of Life Science, Capital Normal University, Beijing, 100037; 2 Beijing Agro-Biotech Research Center, Beijing Academy of Agricultural and
Forestry Science, Beijing, 100097
*Corresponding author, liangrq@hotmail.com
Abstr act Fire found that double-stranded RNA could very successfully suppress the expression of a homological
gene in 1998, and this phenomenon was termed RNA interference (RNAi). RNAi is a homology-dependent gene silencing phenomena that is triggered by the presence of a double-stranded RNA directed against mRNA of a gene or
the promoter region of a gene. There are three types of transgenes that can trigger the RNA silencing of endogenous plant genes: inverted repeat RNA interference, antisense-RNA technology and sense over-expression transgenes. This technology, as a knockdown technology, has been applied to a wide range of species to silence the expression of both specific genes and genes of invading viruses for crop genetics breeding. The advances of its application in gene function, virus resistance, the improvement of crop traits by decreasing disproducts content or increasing desire products content, and the benefit to industry in crop genetics and breeding were reviewed in this paper. Learning more about metabolic regulation of crop and RNAi mechanism, researchers would make RNAi more widely available for crop genetics breeding.
Keywords RNAi, Crop genetic breeding, siRNA, Functional genome