Research progress of RNA pesticides in the field of pest control

Hailed as the "Third Agricultural Pesticide Revolution", RNA pesticides, a category of nucleic acid pesticides based on RNA interference (RNAi), hold broad application prospects in the field of pest control. At present, relevant research on pest management using RNA pesticides mainly focuses on several technical approaches, including gene silencing mediated by chemically synthesized double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) or microRNA (miRNA) in vitro, host-induced gene silencing (HIGS) mediated by transgenic crops, microbe-induced gene silencing (MIGS), and virus-induced gene silencing (VIGS). In the insect RNAi-based pest control system, the optimization of delivery systems and improvement of stability for dsRNA and miRNA remain core bottlenecks to be addressed. To tackle this technical challenge, the strategy of constructing composite delivery systems via the co-assembly of nanomaterials as carriers with dsRNA and miRNA has attracted extensive attention from both academic and industrial communities in recent years. This nanocomposite delivery system exhibits both biosecurity and high delivery efficiency: It can not only effectively protect nucleic acid molecules from degradation by environmental nucleases, but also significantly enhance the RNAi knockdown efficiency of dsRNA and miRNA, thus showing great application potential in the field of green pest control. This paper systematically summarizes the research progress and application status of RNA interference technology in pest control, aiming to provide a reference for the applied research and industrialization of RNA pesticides.