SIGS vs HIGS: a study on the efficacy of two dsRNA delivery strategies to silence Fusarium FgCYP51 genes in infected host and non-host plants

CYP3RNA, a double-stranded (ds)RNA designed to concomitantly target the two sterol 14α-demethylase genes FgCYP51A and FgCYP51B and the fungal virulence factor FgCYP51C, inhibits the growth of the ascomycete fungus Fusarium graminearum (Fg) in vitro and in planta. Here we compare two different methods (setups) of dsRNA delivery, viz. transgene expression (host-induced gene silencing, HIGS) and spray application (spray-induced gene silencing, SIGS), to assess the activity of CYP3RNA and novel dsRNA species designed to target one or two FgCYP51 genes. Using Arabidopsis and barley, we found that dsRNA designed to target two FgCYP51 genes inhibited fungal growth more efficiently than dsRNA targeting a single gene, although both dsRNA species reduced fungal infection. Either dsRNA delivery method reduced fungal growth stronger than anticipated from previous mutational knock-out (KO) strategies, where single gene KO had no significant effect on fungal viability. Consistent with the strong inhibitory effects of the dsRNAs on fungal development in both setups, we detected to a large extent dsRNA-mediated co-silencing of respective non-target FgCYP51 genes. Together, our data further support the valuation that dsRNA applications have an interesting potential for pesticide target validation and gene function studies, apart from their potential for crop protection.