Using Wolbachia to control rice planthopper populations: progress and challenges.

have been developed as a tool for protecting humans from mosquito populations and mosquito-borne diseases. The success of using relies on the facts that are maternally transmitted and that -induced cytoplasmic incompatibility provides a selective advantage to infected over uninfected females, ensuring that rapidly spread through the target pest population. Most transinfected exhibit a strong antiviral response in novel hosts, thus making it an extremely efficient technique. Although has only been used to control mosquitoes so far, great progress has been made in developing -based approaches to protect plants from rice pests and their associated diseases. Here, we synthesize the current knowledge about the important phenotypic effects of used to control mosquito populations and the literature on the interactions between and rice pest planthoppers. Our aim is to link findings from -mediated mosquito control programs to possible applications in planthoppers.