Presentations describing the project have been made to growers, educators and industry personnel, and two of the National Plant Diagnostic Network members. Contacts with and assistance from the organic community has been obtained. Scouts and growers, including organic operations, in Western, Central and Eastern New York are being involved to provide samples and validate the utility of the pathogen detection systems. A project website was established (www.multipath.ppath.cornell.edu ). These tools under development will complement and expand upon the resources of existing diagnostic networks, thus serving to enhance national plant biosecurity.
impact statement issue
Microorganisms such as bacteria, viruses and fungi cause plant diseases. It can be difficult to identify the causal agents, especially in the case of new and emerging diseases and those caused by viruses. Existing technologies such as PCR or serological assays allow for the testing of one or a few suspected pathogens or, if antisera are available, panels of pathogens. The reagents to perform these tests must be individually acquired or developed. A technology that would greatly facilitate disease diagnosis would be a multi-pathogen detection system that could test for the presence of all know pathogens of a given crop. Such a technology would be of interest to university programs and private agricultural testing service providers. It is also of interest to Federal agencies concerned with plant biosecurity, such as the USDA.
impact statement response
We are in the fourth year of developing a multipathogen detection system. This is a nucleic acid-based (e.g. with DNA or RNA), macro-array system. Synthetic DNAs specific to each pathogen are spotted or arrayed and immobilized on a nylon membrane. A diseased plant specimen is processed by extracting its nucleic acids and labeling them. The diseased plant nucleic acids are then spread onto the membrane and hybridized to the pathogen specific DNAs. By observing to which of the spotted DNAs the specimen binds, one can determine the identity of the pathogen associated with the disease. This system has been validated for the detection of 11 common plant viruses of potato and 43 fungal and oomycete pathogens. We are now in the process of designing synthetic DNAs for detecting a wider range of pathogens.
impact statement summary
We are developing a multi-pathogen detection system for the rapid identification of known and emerging pathogens of solanaceous crop plants (potato, tomato, pepper, and eggplant).
