Expansion of the plant-parasitic nematode RNA viruses: Unprecedented diversity, intron-bearing viruses, and cross-kingdom evolutionary links.

ABSTRACT: Plant-parasitic nematodes (PPNs) pose a significant threat to global crop production, yet their associated viral diversity remains poorly characterized, limiting potential virus-mediated biocontrol strategies. In this study, we investigated PPN-associated viruses using both virome data obtained from ten field populations of potato rot nematode (Ditylenchus destructor) collected in Lulong County (Qinhuangdao city, China), a major sweet potato-producing region, along with 536 publicly available transcriptome datasets from the Sequence Read Archive (SRA) database, collectively encompassing twenty-five PPN species. We identified 94 PPN-associated viruses, representing a 7.9-fold increase over prior records. These viruses span eighteen established families and six unclassified viral groups, inc

SUBMITTER: Huang H 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12770441 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature