Project description:Ralstonia solanacearum causes disease in more than 200 plant species including bacterial wilt of tomatoes and brown rot of potatoes. This bacterium is a soilborne and waterborne pathogen, with a worldwide distribution and is on the EPPO A2 list of quarantine pathogens. ln the UK, the bacterium is present in the rivers, but its prevalence depends on the season; it is highly abundant in the summer and undetectable during winter. To survive the cold winter temperatures, R. solanacearum overwinters inside plants growing alongside the rivers such as Solanum dulcamara. Interestingly, this plant species doesn’t show bacterial wilt symptoms. To understand genomic differences with susceptible hosts, we assembled the genome using Oxford Nanopore Technologies and Illumina sequencing.
Project description:70mer probes were designed to detect plant viruses infection in genus level. This microarray platform is able to detect 169 plant virus species of 13 virus genera.
Project description:We report a global survey of viral small RNAs (vsmRNAs) from >200 Aedes aegypti samples to identify many mosquito viruses that actively infect this prominent arboviral vector. Ae. aegypti viruses in the Americas were abundant, with some displaying geographical boundaries. Viruses infecting Asian Ae. aegypti were similar to those in the Americas and revealed the first wild example of dengue vsmRNAs. African Ae. aegypti displayed vsmRNAs from viruses unique to these African strains. Academic lab colonies generally lacked viruses, yet two commercial strains were deeply infected by a tombus-like virus that is related to plant viruses. Comparing matched viral long RNAs to vsmRNAs revealed viral transcripts evading the mosquito RNA interference (RNAi) pathway. By infecting mosquito cells with Ae. aegypti homogenates, we generated stably infected cell lines which produced vsmRNAs that were comparable to native mosquito vsmRNA patterns. Lastly, we demonstrate that these stably infected mosquito cells producing vsmRNAs can exert gene silencing of reporters bearing viral sequence segments, providing a potential explanation for how Ae. aegypti can tolerate the persistence of viral infections. This vsmRNA genomics approach in Ae. aegypti can add to existing vector surveillance approaches by discovering new viruses that persist in mosquito populations.
Project description:70mer probes were designed to detect plant viruses infection in genus level. This microarray platform is able to detect 169 plant virus species of 13 virus genera. Virus sampels were extracted from infected plant hosts. Genomic RNA was extracted and hybridized to the microarray.