New Technologies for Insect-Resistant and Herbicide-Tolerant Plants

The advent of modern molecular biology and recombinant DNA technology has resulted in a dramatic increase in the number of insect-resistant (IR) and herbicide-tolerant (HT) plant varieties, with great economic benefits for farmers. Nevertheless, the high selection pressure generated by control strategies for weed and insect populations has led to the evolution of herbicide and pesticide resistance. In the short term, the development of new techniques or the improvement of existing ones will provide further instruments to counter the appearance of resistant weeds and insects and to reduce the use of agrochemicals. In this review, we examine some of the most promising new technologies for developing IR and HT plants, such as genome editing and antisense technologies.

TrendsWe provide a concise but complete overview of the present status of the technologies used for commercially available varieties for producing IR and HT plants.We describe the limitations of current technologies.We also describe the most promising genetic manipulation technologies, such as genome editing and antisense technologies [by means of oligodeoxynucleotides (ODNs) and double-stranded (ds)RNA] as well as the development of transgenic plants expressing proteinase inhibitors. In the near future, such technologies could contribute to a reduction in the use of agrochemicals and to meet the demand for increased crop production, perhaps resulting in the public acceptance of biotech crops.