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ARS Home » Northeast Area » Frederick, Maryland » Foreign Disease-Weed Science Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #209199

Title: A comprehensive Prunus pathogen array

Author
item SCHNEIDER, WILLIAM
item Sherman, Diana

Submitted to: Phytopathology
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 3/30/2007
Publication Date: 5/1/2007
Citation: Schneider, W.L., Sherman, D.J. 2007. A comprehensive Prunus pathogen array. Phytopathology. 97:S105

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: A comprehensive pathogen array was developed for the detection of pathogens of many major crops in the Prunus genus. The APS disease lists for peach, plum, apricot and cherry were combined into a single Prunus pathogen list, containing 102 pathogens (75 fungi, 18 viruses, 6 bacteria and 3 phytoplasmas). Sequences for all pathogens were obtained from Genbank, and pathogen and group specific oligos were selected using computer programs. The oligos, chosen for consistent melting temperature (mean tm = 69.8C), ranged from 24 to 45 bases with an average length of 35 bases. The number of oligos/pathogen ranged from 1 to 299, depending on the availability of sequence data. In addition to the pathogen oligos, 201 positive control spots from peach were developed, along with 42 randomized or non-pathogen specific oligos and 148 no oligo spots as negative controls. In total, there are 6271 spots on the array. Initial tests using a healthy peach and a Plum pox virus infected peach demonstrated that the array could clearly distinguish infected trees from healthy trees, and that the background signal from no oligo and random oligo controls was sufficiently low to continue testing with more pathogens. The long term goal is to use data from the microarray to generate a macroarray with a manageable number of optimized pathogen detection oligos.