Location: Foreign Disease-Weed Science Research
2019 Annual Report
Accomplishments
1. Lethal plant pathogens of livestock. Rathayibacter agropyri is a plant pathogen closely related to Rathayibacter toxicus, an APHIS-listed select agent found in Australia that makes a toxin in forage grasses lethal to livestock. R. agropyri is endemic to the Pacific Northwest U.S. ARS researchers at Ft. Detrick, Maryland have sequenced the entire DNA genome of several strains of R. agropyri, and at least three strains encode complete toxins of two bacteria that are known to make toxins. This discovery of some R. agropyri strains makes it possible that toxin production could occur.
Review Publications
Ribiero-Bronzato, A., Sherman, D.J., Stone, A.L., Wilson, V., Schneider, W.L., King, J. 2018. Transcriptome amplification coupled with nanopore sequencing as a surveillance tool for plant pathogens in plant and insect tissues. Plant Disease. 102:1648-1652. https://doi.org/10.1094/PDIS-04-17-0488-RE.
Roy, A., Stone, A.L., Leon, M.G., Hartung, J.S., Wei, G., Mavrodieva, V., Nakhla, M.K., Schneider, W.L., Brlansky, R.H. 2018. Sweet orange showing leprosis symptoms in Colombia are naturally infected with Hibiscus infecting cilevirus and citrus leprosis virus C2. Plant Disease. https://doi.org/10.1094/PDIS-01-18-0150-PDN.
Roy, A., Stone, A.L., Melzer, M.J., Hartung, J.S., Shao, J.Y., Mavrodieva, V., Nakhla, M.K., Brlansky, R.H., Schneider, W.L. 2018. Complete nucleotide sequence of a novel Hibiscus-infecting Cilevirus from Florida and its relationship with closely associated Cileviruses. Genome Announcements. 6(4):e01521-17.
Roy, A., Stone, A.L., Melzer, M.J., Hartung, J.S., Mavrodieva, V., Nakhla, M.K., Brlansky, R.H., Schneider, W.L. 2017. First report of Cilevirus associated with green ringspot on senescent hibiscus leaves in Tampa, Florida. Plant Disease. http://doi.org/10.1094/PDIS-11-17-1699-PDN.
Davis, E.W., Tabima, J.F., Weisberg, A.J., Lopes, L.D., Wiseman, M.S., Wiseman, M.S., Pupko, T., Belcher, M.S., Sechler, A.J., Tancos, M.A., Schroeder, B.K., Murray, T.D., Luster, D.G., Schneider, W.L., Rogers, E.E., Andreote, F., Grunwald, N.J., Putman, M.L., Chang, J.H. 2018. Bacteriophage NCPPB3778 and a type I-E CRISPR drive the evolution of the U.S. biological select agent Rathayibacter toxicus. mBio. 9:e01280-18.