Plant pathogen diagnostics: immunological and nucleic acid‐based approaches

Abstract

Accurate disease diagnosis and precise identification of any pathogens involved is an essential prerequisite for understanding plant diseases and controlling them effectively. Traditional methods of identifying plant pathogens can be slow and inconclusive, and this has prompted the search for alternative diagnostic techniques. Here, we review recent developments in antibody-based and nucleic acid-based diagnostic methods, and their applications in plant pathology. We also highlight some new developments in diagnostics that are likely to make an impact in the future.

The quest for understanding phenotypic variation via integrated approaches in the field environment

“…As a result, the genetic mapping of QTL can be performed with phenotype data obtained by successive measurement of a trait, such as height, throughout plant development, thereby enabling the expression dynamics of identified QTL to be monitored in the context of changing environmental conditions. and Bart, 2015), and these methods are widely employed (Ward et al, 2004;Lievens and Thomma, 2005;Mirmajlessi et al, 2015). The early detection of plant diseases prior to their spread remains the larger challenge.…”

Quantitative phenotyping of grey leaf spot disease in maize using real-time PCR

“…This represents an improvement in sensitivity compared to other DNA based detection methods such as dot blots that were able to detect 160 pg of DNA from Sporisorium reiliana, the cause of head smut in maize (Xu et al, 1999). Alternative approaches that are not based on DNA are less sensitive, such as ELISA-based assays (Ward et al, 2004) or measurement of the fungus-specific lipid ergosterol, which has been used for quantification of Cercospora kikuchii in soybean (Xue et al, 2006). Ergosterol is present in many fungal species, and thus its use is limited to controlled inoculations.…”

Grapevine Biotechnology: Molecular Approaches Underlying Abiotic and Biotic Stress Responses

“…They can detect the presence of viral genomes even at low viral titer, are rapid, allow the scaling and the simultaneous analysis of a high number of samples or several viruses at once [100]. Since most of grapevine viruses have RNA genomes, reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) is the selected molecular assay for the detection of these pathogens [83,101]. Several techniques have been developed based on PCR variants [83,102], but the use of real-time PCR allows quantification of virus titer [103].…”