In essence, they could switch off genes within pathogens at will. Scientists soon realized that if you could introduce dsRNA into a pesky pathogen-a particularly irritating fungus, for example-you could instruct that pathogen’s cells to destroy its own mRNA and stop it from making crucial proteins. It also sparked a race to develop new tools based on it. The discovery of this process-called RNA interference (RNAi)-earned two scientists the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. If the molecular bad guys get chopped up before they can start being made into proteins, the cell will have headed off a successful invasion. Molecules in the cell pick them up and use them to hunt down any matching stretches of messenger RNA (mRNA)-the molecules cells use to turn genetic instructions into proteins. These chunks of dsRNA are like teeny-tiny wanted posters.
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When a cell detects the presence of double-stranded RNA (dsRNA)-a stretch of genetic code that viruses use to duplicate themselves-it hacks this dsRNA up into tiny pieces. At some point-we’re not exactly sure when-cells evolved the ability to chop up and destroy genetic material from invading pathogens, like viruses. This new generation of pesticides is based on a cellular trick that dates back more than a billion years, at least as far as the last common ancestor of animals, plants, fungi, and protists. And his starting point is RNA: a molecule similar to DNA that is one of the fundamental building blocks of life. Singleton is working on a way around these problems. The downsides of existing fungicides and pesticides are well-known: Residue from the sprays can build up in the environment and damage non-target organisms, while their overuse can lead to pests and weeds evolving resistance. (The top spot went to Magnaporthe oryzae: a fungus that devastates rice fields all over the world.) “It’s the big one,” says Mark Singleton, head of plant and animal health at GreenLight Biosciences, a Massachusetts-based biotech startup working on a new generation of sprays to defend against Botrytis and other pests that bedevil farmers. It’s so troublesome that a survey of plant pathologists ranked it as the second most important plant fungal pathogen, in what can only be described as their industry’s equivalent of TIME magazine’s “Most Influential People” list. Some estimates put the figure as high as $100 billion. That single species of fungus is responsible for at least $10 billion in damage to crops each year. A spoiled dessert is a pain, sure, but for the food industry Botrytis poses a major problem. If you’ve ever left a tub of strawberries in the refrigerator a little too long and returned to find them looking a sort of gray-green, there’s a good chance that one of the ever-present spores of Botrytis floating through the air decided to make its forever home in your dessert. It’ll happily munch through hundreds of plant species-although soft fruits like grapes are its favorite-covering everything it feasts on with a velvety layer of mold. The scuzzy fungus has a voracious appetite. Of all the fungi out there, Botrytis cinerea is the one that keeps farmers up at night.
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