叶绿体作为一种离散、高度结构化、半自主的细胞器。叶绿体的小基因组能成为合成生物学极有前途的平台。叶绿体基因工程作为一种特殊的合成生物学手段，对重建植物体内各种复杂的代谢途径具有巨大的潜力，例如提高作物的光合能力，植物的抗逆性或者合成新的药物和疫苗。然而，许多植物的叶绿体遗传转化效率低或无法进行。因此，新的转化技术和工具正在不断被开发。为了进一步拓展和促进叶绿体基因工程的应用，本文综述了近年来在叶绿体遗传转化方面的新技术，并对选择合适的合成生物元件用以构建高效的叶绿体转化载体进行了探讨。

RNA interference (RNAi) technology has the potential to be used in pest management in crop production. Here, the transcriptome of Nephotettix cincticeps (Uhler) was deeply sequenced to investigate the systematic RNAi mechanism and candidate genes for dsRNA feeding. In our datasets, a total of 81 225 transcripts were obtained with the length from 150 bp to about 4.2 kb. Almost all the genes related to the RNAi core pathway were proved to be present in N. cincticeps transcriptome. Two transcripts that respectively encode a systemic interference defective (SID) were identified in our database, indicating that the systematic RNAi pathway can function effectively in N. cincticeps. Our datasets not only supply basic gene information for the studies of gene expression and functions in N. cincticeps, such as the control genes for gene expression analysis, but also provide candidate genes for RNAi pest management, such as the genes that encode P450 monooxygenase, V-ATPase and chitin synthase.