Peanut is a highly nutritious food, and increasingly used as a food ingredient. However, peanut allergy is one of the most life threatening food allergies and one of the serious challenges facing the peanut and food industries.  To date, there is no cure for peanut allergy and the most effective management option available to the susceptible population is assiduous avoidance of peanuts, which is difficult. RNA interference (RNAi) technology applied to peanut could bring a solution. Peanut contains several allergens amongst which Ara h 1, Ara h 2 and Ara h ¾ are known as major allergens because they trigger allergic reactions in at least 50% of peanut sensitive individuals. Recently, we successfully downregulated Ara h 2, the most immunodominant peanut allergen. This resulted in a significant decrease in the allergenic potency of the transgenic peanut expressed as a reduction in IgE binding capacity of transgenic crude peanut extracts (CPE) to serum IgE of patients allergic to peanut.  Following this success, we constructed an RNAi transformation vector to eliminate concomitantly the three major allergens.
An Ara h 1-Ara h 2-Ara h 3 tandem transgene was cloned into pHannibal vector in sense and in antisense orientation to create an Ara h1-2-3 RNAi silencing cassette which was sub-cloned into a binary plasmid pART27. The resulting transformation vector pDK30 was used to infect peanut hypocotyls explants. PCR and Southern blots revealed 35 of 51 T0 plants stably integrated the transgene. Concomitant downregulation of Ara h1, Ara h 2 and Ara h 3 was confirmed in several transgenic seeds using qRT-PCR, Sandwich ELISA, and Western blotting.