People have been talking about using RNA interference for pest control for more than a decade. Turns out that introducing tailored RNA into living organisms is non-trivial and can have undesirable side effects. This has been known for some time. Researchers used RNA interference techniques to observe the effect of inserting green fluorescent protein coding into bees. This was supposed to do nothing but make cells glow under UV light.

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Although dsRNA-GFP is not expected to trigger RNAi responses in treated bees, undesirable effects
on gene expression, pigmentation or developmental timing are often observed. Here, we
performed three independent experiments using microarrays to examine the effect of
dsRNA-GFP treatment (introduced by feeding) on global gene expression patterns in
developing worker bees. Our data revealed that the expression of nearly 1,400 genes was
altered in response to dsRNA-GFP, representing around 10% of known honey bee genes.
Expression changes appear to be the result of both direct off-target effects and indirect
downstream secondary effects


Non-Target Effects of Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP)-Derived Double-Stranded RNA (dsRNA-GFP) Used in Honey Bee RNA Interference (RNAi) Assays. Insects 2013, 4, 90-103; doi:10.3390/insects4010090

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