Improved Identification and Detection of Select Agent Ralstonia solanacearum Strains Threatening the US Potato Industry
Phytobiomes Alliance project
Funded by
USDA Animal Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS)
Duration
12 months
Dates
1 July 2022 - 31 June 2023 - extended to 31 December 2023
Coordinator
Kellye Eversole, Eversole Associates
Project Overview
The goal of this project is to develop a data-driven framework for improving the regulation and detection of Rs strains that threaten US agriculture.
The primary purpose of this project is to precisely circumscribe the authentically threatening Rs strains that are highly aggressive on potato at cool temperatures using a combination of phenotypic assays and bioinformatics to evaluate current diagnostic markers. If current markers accurately identify the authentically threatening strains, new diagnostic markers will be developed that can be used to provide an affirmative positive test result for a strain that is not a Select Agent based on a negative test with current markers. If current markers are found to give false positives or false negatives, new diagnostic markers will be developed.
Objectives
Objective 1: Use three validated and quantitative bioassays to determine if aggressive potato brown rot virulence at cool temperatures is a shared and unique property of strains identified by genome-based classification as PL isolates.
Objective 2: Identify genomic sequences unique to Rs strains that authentically threaten US potato production, evaluate current diagnostics markers based on these results, and develop additional markers to minimize the risk of false positives and negatives.
Project News
- June 2023 – Alliance Newsletter
The second phase of the Alliance-coordinated project started in July 2022 with a goal of complementing and extending results from the phenotypic and genomic research obtained in the first phase of the project (2019-2021). The purpose of this new project is to precisely circumscribe the authentically threatening Ralstonia solanacearum (Rs) strains that are highly aggressive on potato at cool temperatures using a combination of phenotypic assays and bioinformatics to develop diagnostic markers that reliably and specifically identify these threatening strains. - December 2023 – The project was completed and manuscripts, covering both phases, are in preparation.
Key personnel
Kellye Eversole (Eversole Associates)
Gwyn Beattie (Iowa State University)
Project Partners
