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ARS Home » Northeast Area » Beltsville, Maryland (BARC) » Beltsville Agricultural Research Center » Mycology and Nematology Genetic Diversity and Biology Laboratory » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #392677
Research Project: Management of Specimens and Associated Information in the U.S. National Fungus Collections, with Emphasis on Critically Important Plant Pathogenic Fungi

Location: Mycology and Nematology Genetic Diversity and Biology Laboratory

Title: Standards of diagnostic validation: recommendations for reference collections

Author
item HARMON, CARRIE - University Of Florida
item Castlebury, Lisa
item BOUNDY-MILLS, KYRIA - University Of California, Davis
item Broders, Kirk
item HYTEN, AIMEE - Animal And Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS)
item JACOBS, JONATHAN - American Type Culture Collections
item KNIGHT-CONNONI, VICTORIA - American Type Culture Collections
item Mollov, Dimitre
item RIOJAS, MARCO - American Type Culture Collections
item SHARMA, POONAM - Oklahoma State University

Submitted to: PhytoFrontiers
Publication Type: Review Article
Publication Acceptance Date: 8/24/2022
Publication Date: 5/22/2023
Citation: Harmon, C., Castlebury, L.A., Boundy-Mills, K., Broders, K.D., Hyten, A.M., Jacobs, J., Knight-Connoni, V., Mollov, D.S., Riojas, M.A., Sharma, P. 2023. Standards of diagnostic validation: recommendations for reference collections. PhytoFrontiers. 3(1):43-50. https://doi.org/10.1094/PHYTOFR-05-22-0050-FI.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1094/PHYTOFR-05-22-0050-FI

Interpretive Summary: Reference collections for preserving living and dried material for plant pathogens are important for maintaining the integrity and accuracy of diagnostic assays. However not all researchers are aware that such collections exist or how to use them. This work outlines some of the available collections and how they have been or can be used in the future. It provides a set of recommendations the use, long term maintenance and standardization of collection data associated with plant pathogen diagnostic assays. The information will be used by plant disease diagnosticians and plant pathologists or regulatory officials who design or use diagnostic assays.

Technical Abstract: Agricultural and ecosystem biosecurity requires accurate and highly reliable diagnostic data provided by systems of people, technologies, and validated diagnostic assays. Biological reference collections, including living and preserved microbe culture collections and in silico sequence accessions, are essential for development and validation of robust diagnostic assays as well as breeding for disease resistance. However, the lack of standardized requirements for long-term preservation, curation, and recordkeeping of collections poses a significant risk to this research. Several examples of successful collections and funding models exist, but these are disparate, disconnected, and there are no standards for harmonization across all of them. We recommend a framework for coordinated development, long-term maintenance, and accessibility of curated sets of pathogen data, cultures, and other reference material, that could serve the needs of both pathogen diagnostics development and resistance breeding efforts.