Ontwikkeling van een NGS-gebaseerd platform voor het ontwerp van dsRNA-moleculen ter bestrijding van plantenvirussen

Over the past years, a rapid increase in the number of novel plant viruses, as well as their rapid geographical spread has been observed. Global trade changes, agriculture practices aiming to intensify production as well as climate change have contributed to this expansion. The agriculture sector is in need of methods facilitating timely identification of an emerging viral threat, accurate determination of its spread path and efficient management in crops. PCR has been used for sensitive plant virus detection. However, the application of Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) allowed discovery of previously unknown viruses. Tracing the time and path of movement of emerging virus threats has been made possible through phylogenetic and phylogeographic analysis. Current strategies for targeted management of plant viruses can be very laborious, as the development of resistant crops or transgenic plant is very time consuming and various limiting regulations exist. Plant cross protection, which depends on the plant RNA interference mechanism, is being explored as a viable alternative management approach. This PhD project aims to develop a platform that utilizes NGS data to design molecules for dsRNA-mediated protection against emerging plant viruses. Proof of principle using virus inoculation experiments will be performed for two currently circulating viruses with high economic importance, Pepino mosaic virus and Tomato brown rugose fruit virus. We will study the distribution of the established viruses and investigate the presence of novel viruses in our sample collections. The innovative platform will function as a useful tool in plant disease management, by allowing the rapid development of a strategy to protect plants against novel viruses. Additionally, using state of the art molecular tools a new generation of non-transgenic, efficient and economically feasible plant protection strategies will be created.