Projects / Programmes
Biološka raznovrstnost virusa PVY in njen vpliv na obrambni odgovor rastlin krompirja (Slovene)
| Code |
Science |
Field |
| 4.04 |
Agricultural and Veterinary Sciences |
Agricultural biotechnology |
Researchers (15)
Organisations (4)
Significance for science
The results of the research project contribute to knowledge on biodiversity and epidemiology of most important virus infecting potato PVY, but they will also add scientific advances to the field of monolithic chromatography and SPR. Regarding the PVY scientific field, the results of the project have been included in the PVY research under international association PVY WIDE which is leaded by project partner INRA. In addition to the validation and comparison of already existing techniques (SNaPshot and RT-qPCR), that will enable quick and efficient distinction between mild and severe PVY genotipes, new methodologies have also been developed, which might result benefitting for future research in the field. Among them we find the development of a CIM monoliths-based PVY purification protocol, the evaluation of water as potential factor in PVY epidemics, and the use, for the first time, of SPR to monitor the PVY-antibody interaction. In addition, the research on the differential gene expression observed in host plant, upon infection with mild and aggressive PVY strains, will help understanding the plant metabolic pathways and genes involved in symptom expression. On the other hand, the results will also help to the further development and establishment of CIM monolithic chromatographic supports as ideal material for the binding, isolation and purification of viruses. The results with CIM monoliths and PVY within this project will join previous satisfactory results obtained using CIM and other viruses, such as, phages, rotaviruses, adenoviruses, tomato mosaic virus, etc, and will be the basis for future appliccations such as the use of CIM for preparing virus samples for NGS. In the case of the SPR technique, the encouraging preliminary results obtained represent an important advance, as never before was the interaction antibody-virus, explored with SPR for a filamentous virus. This could be the basis of future strategies for designing more effective antibody cocktails for the research and diagnostic of PVY. The obtained results also open doors to the use of SPR for studying interaction of PVY with other proteins, such as the proteins from host plant or from the virus itself. The same is relevant for the performed transcriptomic analysis of the plant response to PVY infection. The biological approaches and biostatistics tools developed and optimized during the analysis are of benefit in the experiments of transcriptomics that focus on other metabolic routes, other viruses and interactions of plants with bacteria.
Significance for the country
The results of the project fit in the fields of biotechnology, genomics and systems biology for health and safe food, and therefore match the highest priorities of Slovenia and the European Union. As such they fit to the first priority of this call and sixth priority: research for development of Slovene companies. The project’s results will directly help the collaborators at BIA separations on broadening the target user group of the CIM monolithic supports, which are a result of their own development. This will impulse even more their already successful expansion into the international market, as well as their work with national high-tech industry. At the same time, the obatined results will be directly used in the agriculture field. The new knowledge on the biology and epidemiology of the most important potato infecting virus (PVY) and its strains will affect the agriculture manufacturing by influencing the strategy of agricultural practice related to potato production. The results of the research done will help to adopt more efficient measures for virus eradication. Such changes in the agricultural practice, being better focused on resolving the problem of epidemics with PVY aggressive strains, will allow for a more environment friendly production and plant protection methods. The new options for virus detection and the knowledge on new epidemiologic sources will, on the other hand, be important and adaptable also to the case of other plant viruses, as well as animal and human viruses. The results obtained exploring water as a potential infection route also help to a better understanding of the plant virus epidemiology and to decide if in certain plant production systems, irrigation waters or river waters should be taken into account in the surveys of specific plant viruses. In this field, we already performed successful research focused on the detection of ToMV, PepMV and Rotaviruses, in environmental waters. Those results have been disseminated as high impact scientific publications, and in addition, the developed methods are being used by a number of national and international diagnostic laboratories. The department of biotechnology and systems biology collaborates intensively for more than 10 years with representatives from the Ministry of agriculture and forestry, from the phytosanitary inspection services and with other experts from the field of plant protection. The development and optimization of specific qPCR for diagnostics and genotipisation will help in improving the diagnostic services that are performed each year for the Slovenian phytosanitary administration and inspection service. The knowledge obtained from the project, which will be generated not only by Slovene scientist but also by scientists from beyond our borders, will be presented to such representatives and at the same time its use enabled. The exchange of know-how with international partners (INRA and FERA), leading institutions in the plant virology filed, represents an additional benefit especially in doctoral students exchange and education. The obtained knowledge will is extended to the pedagogic work, both in undergraduate and postgraduate level. Two doctoral theses were already defended last year, one on research of PePMV and the other on PVY, while other two are running now. . The biological approaches and biostatistics tools developed and optimized during the analysis are of benefit in the experiments of transcriptomics that focus on industrial bacteria – drug bioproducers.
Most important scientific results
Annual report
2009,
2010,
2011,
final report,
complete report on dLib.si
Most important socioeconomically and culturally relevant results
Annual report
2009,
2010,
2011,
final report,
complete report on dLib.si
