Huazhong Agricultural University has made new progress in the development of nucleic acid‑based pesticides, offering fresh approaches to managing pest resistance.

Release Date:

2023-10-10

Recently, the pesticide toxicology and pest‑resistance team led by Professor Jianhong Li of the College of Plant Science and Technology published two research papers in Chemical Engineering Journal and ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, titled “Overcoming resistance in insect pest with a nanoparticle-mediated dsRNA and insecticide co-delivery system” and “Metal−Organic Framework-Based Insecticide and dsRNA Codelivery System for Insecticide Resistance Management,” respectively. These studies report two RNAi‑based approaches to managing insecticide resistance. By co‑delivering dsRNA and insecticides, the research breaks with conventional paradigms in resistance management and new‑pesticide development, offering a novel pathway to reduce insecticide use and promote green, high‑quality, safe production in crops such as cotton and rice in China.

RNAi‑based management of pest resistance represents a highly promising strategy for pest control. However, the environmental instability of dsRNA has precluded its direct application in agricultural production. To address this challenge, our team developed nanocarriers capable of co‑encapsulating both insecticides and dsRNA, targeting key resistance‑related genes in pests to achieve green, efficient pest management. These nanocarriers markedly enhance the environmental stability of dsRNA and enable the efficient delivery of both insecticides and exogenous dsRNA into plants and pest bodies, thereby substantially boosting the bioactivity of the insecticides against target pests. Our findings offer a novel approach to managing resistant pests and hold significant potential for the development of sustainable, high‑efficiency strategies for pest control.

Based on a co-delivery strategy for insecticides and dsRNAs, we constructed two co‑delivery systems: RHMS/IMI/dsCYP6CY13 (Figure 1), which employs surface‑roughened hollow mesoporous silica (RHMS) combined with zeolitic imidazolate framework‑8 (ZIF‑8) as nanocarriers, and imidacloprid/dsNlCYP6ER1@ZIF‑8 (Figure 2). RHMS efficiently loads the insecticide within its hollow mesoporous structure and further forms nanoscale complexes with dsRNA via electrostatic interactions, thereby protecting the dsRNA from nuclease degradation. Due to its unique architecture, RHMS/IMI/dsCYP6CY13 can penetrate the cuticle of cotton aphids (Aphis gossypii), delivering both the insecticide and dsRNA into the insect body, inhibiting the expression of the key resistance gene CYP6CY13 and enhancing the insecticidal efficacy of the formulation. The imidacloprid/dsNlCYP6ER1@ZIF‑8 co‑delivery system exhibits uniform particle size and excellent dispersibility, enabling efficient delivery of imidacloprid and dsRNA to the base of rice stems. Following feeding by brown planthoppers (Nilaparvata lugens), this system suppresses the expression of the key imidacloprid‑resistance gene NlCYP6ER1, thereby increasing the susceptibility of brown planthoppers to imidacloprid.

Figure 1. Preparation and mechanism of action of a co-delivery nano-pesticide with permeability-enhancing properties for the cotton aphid cuticle.

Figure 2. Preparation and mechanism of action of imidacloprid/dsNlCYP6ER1@ZIF-8 RNAi nanopesticide.

PhD students Hai-Xiang Lü and Chang Yu from the College of Plant Science and Technology served as the first authors, while Associate Professors Shun He and Kang-Sheng Ma were the corresponding authors. Professors Jian-Hong Li and Hu Wan also contributed to the research. This work was supported by the National Key R&D Program, the Hubei Provincial Key R&D Program, and the National Natural Science Foundation of China, among other funding sources.

Source: Nanhu News Network

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