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ARS Home » Midwest Area » Wooster, Ohio » Application Technology Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #380703
Research Project: Sustainable Production and Pest Management Practices for Nursery, Greenhouse, and Protected Culture Crops

Location: Application Technology Research

Title: Direct metatranscriptomic survey of sunflower Microbiome and Virome

Author
item WANG, ZIYI - South Dakota State University
item NEUPANE, ACHAL - South Dakota State University
item FENG, JIUHUAN - South Dakota State University
item PEDERSEN, CONNOR - South Dakota State University
item Marzano, Shin-Yi

Submitted to: Viruses
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 9/15/2021
Publication Date: 9/18/2021
Citation: Wang, Z., Neupane, A., Feng, J., Pedersen, C., Marzano, S.L. 2021. Direct metatranscriptomic survey of sunflower Microbiome and Virome. Viruses. 13(9). Article 1867. https://doi.org/10.3390/v13091867.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/v13091867

Interpretive Summary: In this study, we surveyed field sunflower production to discover novel mycoviruses associated with diseased leaves. We report a discovery of 1 endornaviruses, 2 mitoviruses, 3 partitiviruses, and 4 totiviruses. These mycoviruses represents a natural genetic resource that we can further develop potential biopesticide to control sunflower diseases. This study presents a proof of concept that field myco-virome survey bypassing fungal isolation and culturing can allow for a direct screening of novel/known viruses.

Technical Abstract: Sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.) are susceptible to multiple fungal diseases in field production. In this study, we collected leaves in fields located in Volga, South Dakota, USA. The diseased plants showed visible symptoms on foliage, indicating phomopsis and rust infections, respectively. To identify the mycovirus associated with the fungal pathogens, symptomatic leaves obtained from a diseased plant were stacked and punched in discs. Total RNA was extracted corresponding to the disease diagnosed. RNA samples were treated with DNase I and evaluated for integrity by agarose gel electrophoresis. Total RNA free of genomic DNA was were depleted of rRNA and used as templates to construct paired-end libraries for high throughput sequencing. Short sequence reads were assembled de novo with Trinity. Contigs with similarity to viruses were identified by aligning against a custom protein data base containing sunflower and viral amino acid sequences downloaded from GenBank. We report a discovery of 1 endornaviruses, 2 mitoviruses, 3 partitiviruses, and 4 totiviruses. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report of direct metatranscriptomics discovery of mycovirus associated with fungal infections of sunflower without culturing. These mycoviruses represents a natural genetic resource that we can further develop potential biopesticide to control sunflower diseases.