Gene Silencing in Plants Through Exogenous Application of miRNAs.

Although omics technologies allow us to identify genes involved in various biological processes, we still rely on the analysis of the function of individual genes. Studies of the function of a specific gene include technologies such as gene silencing by RNAi or genome editing by CRISPR-cas9. However, most of them depend on the availability of transformation methods, so they are not established for all plants. In this chapter, we report a protocol that involves the exogenous application of miRNAs for the specific silencing of genes of interest. The advantage of this protocol is that it does not require a transformation event and can be applied to a certain tissue or developmental stage. This novel technology facilitates the analysis of specific gene functions in crops of economic interest.