Florian Hartig Theoretical Ecology & Ecological Data Science

← Publications

Efficiency of RNAi-based gene silencing in fungi: a meta-analysis

Patrick Barth, Jakob Drumm, Alexandra Erika Schmidt, Florian Hartig, Aline Koch

New Phytologist (2026)
Cite this
@article{barth2026efficiency,
  author = {Patrick Barth and Jakob Drumm and Alexandra Erika Schmidt and Florian Hartig and Aline Koch},
  title = {Efficiency of RNAi-based gene silencing in fungi: a meta-analysis},
  journal = {New Phytologist},
  year = {2026},
  doi = {10.1111/nph.71552},
}

DOI: 10.1111/nph.71552
Cited by, as of 07 September 2026

View article (DOI) Preprint

Abstract

RNA interference (RNAi) shows great potential to protect crops against fungal diseases, yet reported protection efficiencies vary greatly, and our understanding of the factors responsible for this variance remains limited. In this meta-analysis, we evaluated 89 studies that compare the efficiency of host-induced gene silencing (HIGS) and spray-induced gene silencing (SIGS) in controlling fungal diseases, focusing on biotrophic, hemibiotrophic, and necrotrophic fungi, the use of formulations, and the dsRNA design as explanatory factors for differences between reported efficiency values. Our results indicate that SIGS is slightly more effective, particularly against biotrophs. Surprisingly, SIGS studies using formulations did not outperform those applying naked dsRNA. We also assessed parameters of RNA design. Differences in dsRNA length and the number of constructs and number of targets showed no consistent significant effect on resistance in either HIGS or SIGS. However, HIGS studies reported significantly higher efficiency when targeting genes closer to the 3’ end and SIGS when targeting genes closer to the 5’ end. We discuss potential reasons for the reported patterns, such as variability in dsRNA uptake mechanisms, intercellular trafficking, and Dicer processing, and conclude that more research is needed to understand the biological mechanisms determining RNAi efficiency for fungal control.

What the paper shows and why it matters (AI-generated)

RNAi-based fungal control is a genuinely promising alternative to chemical fungicides, but published protection efficiencies have varied so widely across studies that it's been hard to know what actually drives success. Pooling 89 studies into one meta-analysis finds a real, if modest, edge for spray-induced over host-induced silencing — and a genuinely surprising negative: formulations meant to improve dsRNA delivery didn't outperform applying it naked, undercutting an assumption much of the field's product-development effort has been built on.