MARPLE: Mobile and Real-Time Plant Disease Diagnostics for Enhancing Wheat Rust Surveillance.

Area of Science:

• Plant Pathology
• Genomics
• Molecular Diagnostics

Background:

• Plant pathogens cause significant global crop losses, necessitating rapid disease detection for effective management.
• Advancements in DNA sequencing technologies have enabled the development of sophisticated plant disease diagnostic tools.
• Current surveillance systems are increasingly incorporating DNA-based methods for critical crop disease threats.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce and detail the Mobile And Real-time PLant disEase (MARPLE) diagnostics platform.
• To explain the application of MARPLE diagnostics for identifying specific strains of wheat rust pathogens.
• To highlight the suitability of MARPLE for use in diverse and resource-limited environments.

Main Methods:

• Utilizes amplicon re-sequencing on a portable MinION sequencer.
• Targets highly variable genes specific to wheat yellow rust (Puccinia striiformis f. sp. tritici; Pst) and wheat stem rust (Puccinia graminis f. sp. tritici; Pgt) pathogens.
• Employs phylogenetic analysis by comparing new sample sequences to global reference isolates.

Main Results:

• The MARPLE platform enables strain typing of Pst and Pgt pathogens.
• The method is designed for simplicity, requiring minimal training and equipment.
• The technology is well-suited for point-of-care (POC) applications, including resource-poor regions.

Conclusions:

• MARPLE diagnostics provides a powerful, accessible tool for real-time plant disease surveillance.
• The platform facilitates rapid identification and tracking of economically important wheat rust strains.
• This approach can significantly aid in mitigating crop losses due to plant diseases worldwide.