miRNA-based approaches for sustainable control of diseases

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) were envisioned, in recent years, as alternative, environmental friendly molecular tools to confer crop protection. This view was based on their ability to move across Kingdoms and to modulate gene expression at the post-transcriptional level, inhibiting pathogens or parasites' invasive processes or promoting plant favorable microorganisms. Strategies based on miRNAs, complementing the already existing technologies or creating new unexplored ones, are expected to provide valuable tools to reduce crop biotic damage, increasing food production and safety. This review provides a brief overview of miRNA-based technologies applied so far for plant protection and reports some new approaches suggested by recent acquisitions on miRNA.