Grapevine Virology in the Third-Generation Sequencing Era: From Virus Detection to Viral Epitranscriptomics

Area of Science:

• Plant virology
• Genomic sequencing technologies

Background:

• Grapevine (Vitis vinifera L.) is a crucial global fruit crop impacting economies worldwide.
• The grape and wine industry faces increasing threats from known and emerging viral diseases.
• High-throughput sequencing (HTS) is established in grapevine virology, but third-generation sequencing remains underexplored.

Purpose of the Study:

• To review the principles of third-generation sequencing platforms.
• To explore the application of Nanopore sequencing in grapevine virus detection and characterization.
• To discuss Nanopore sequencing's potential in understanding virus-plant interactions and viral RNA modifications.

Main Methods:

• Review of existing literature on grapevine viruses and third-generation sequencing.
• Discussion of Nanopore sequencing technology (e.g., MinION platform) principles.
• Analysis of Nanopore sequencing applications in plant virology.

Main Results:

• Nanopore sequencing enables direct RNA and DNA sequencing with minimal infrastructure.
• The MinION platform is faster, more cost-effective, and supports long-read sequencing compared to other HTS methods.
• Nanopore sequencing is suitable for portable field surveillance of grapevine viral diseases.

Conclusions:

• Third-generation sequencing, particularly Nanopore technology, presents significant potential for advancing grapevine virus research.
• Nanopore sequencing facilitates efficient grapevine virus detection, characterization of viral RNA modifications, and study of virus-plant interactions.
• The portability and cost-effectiveness of Nanopore sequencing make it a valuable tool for global grapevine disease surveillance.