WG1: RNAi technology

Objectives: Determine the state of existing knowledge on RNAi technology and how this is being used in the development of RNAi plants.

Tasks, Deliverables:

1.  Review existing knowledge and state of the art to provide a solid background for new developments, applications and research information and to support risk assessments.  Identify knowledge and data gaps. Deliverable: Develop a data base of references and relevant documents.

2.  Review and study plant RNAi systems that have been and are being developed and commercialised. Differentiate between siRNA and miRNA technology, and determine which technology has been favourably used for annual and perennial plant species including the rootstock-to-scion transfer of the silencing virus resistance signal. Compare approaches, determine advantages and disadvantages, specificity, etc. Deliverable: a review of the applications of plant siRNA and miRNA systems.

3.  Explore potential new applications of RNAi technology in crop plants for expressing novel traits or functions. Deliverable: Review of existing and future applications of RNAi

4.  Development of a publicly accessible bioinformatics data base on target and off-target genes of characterised dsRNA and miRNA sequences. Deliverable: Bioinformatics data base.

5. Support training, conference and workshop programme as described in 2.2.2.