| abstract |
The present invention pertains to the field of agriculture. The invention relates to a method to inhibit gene expression in bacteria, which is referred to here as Antibacterial Gene Silencing (AGS). In particular embodiments, the method is used to protect plants against pathogenic bacteria by targeting pathogenicity factors and / or essential genes in a sequence-specific manner via small non-coding RNAs. The method can also be used to enhance beneficial effects and / or growth of plant-associated symbiotic or commensal bacteria. The invention involves either the generation of stable transgenic plants that constitutively express antibacterial small RNAs or, alternatively, the exogenous delivery of these small RNA entities onto plants, either in the form of RNA extracts or embedded into plant extracellular vesicles (EVs), which were found to be effective in reducing bacterial pathogenicity. The invention also describes a method to identify in a rapid, reliable and cost-effective manner, small RNAs that possess antibacterial activity and that can be further exploited for RNA-based biocontrol applications to confer plant protection against pathogenic bacteria. In addition, the latter approach is instrumental to rapidly characterize any genes from any bacterial species. |