RNA沉默是广泛存在于生物中的一种古老现象, 是生物抵抗异常DNA的一种保护机制, 同时在生物生长发育过程中扮演着基因表达调控的角色。文章对RNA沉默研究中的几个热点问题进行了介绍, 按RNA沉默持续时间的不同对其在植物中应用的方法进行了分析, 并重点论述了RNA沉默在植物功能基因组研究、作物品质改良以及抗病毒植物培育等方面的应用及其发展前景。

RNA silencing is an ancient phenomenon commonly existed in organisms, which acts as the mechanism of self-protection in defending abnormal DNA and as the gene expression regulator during the growth and development of organisms. The hotspots about RNA silencing and the methods of this technique used in plants according to its durational differences were introduced. The current status and prospective of the technique in the areas of plant functional genomics studies, improvement of crop quality, and plant breeding for virus resistance were reviewed.