Targeted genome engineering for insects control

Abstract As traditional chemical insecticides fail to provide adequate control over insect pests primarily due to development in resistance due to chemical pesticides, advances in biotechnological methods like RNA interference (RNAi) and clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)/Cas9 can provide sustainable and eco-friendly approaches to reduce insect pests. These technologies can be used efficiently and selectively for targeting an organism without harming beneficial insects. The genes which are responsible for various developmental stages in the insect life cycle may be used in RNAi and CRISPR/Cas9 system for knockdown and knockout/Knock-in the function of traits. This chapter describes the steps required for efficient dsRNA delivery mechanisms in insects and strategies to reduce the insect population efficiently. The permanent mutation in the DNA of insects by CRISPR/Cas9 helps to remove and reduce efficiently the insect pest in the affected areas which are not only a threat to agriculture but also humans and other groups of the population. Taken together, these technologies are playing a lead role in the development of advanced genome editing tools in nonmodel insects for their control.