Department of Botany and Nature Protection, University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn, Plac Łódzki 1, 10-727 Olsztyn, Poland.
Int J Mol Sci. 2020 Apr 10;21(7):2645. doi: 10.3390/ijms21072645.
Fungi and oomycetes encompass many pathogens affecting crops worldwide. Their effective control requires screening pathogens across the local and international trade networks along with the monitoring of pathogen inocula in the field. Fundamentals to all of these concerns are their efficient detection, identification, and quantification. The use of molecular markers showed the best promise in the field of plant pathogen diagnostics. However, despite the unquestionable benefits of DNA-based methods, two significant limitations are associated with their use. The first limitation concerns the insufficient level of sensitivity due to the very low and uneven distribution of pathogens in plant material. The second limitation pertains to the inability of widely used diagnostic assays to detect cryptic species. Targeting mtDNA appears to provide a solution to these challenges. Its high copy number in microbial cells makes mtDNA an attractive target for developing highly sensitive assays. In addition, previous studies on different pathogen taxa indicated that mitogenome sequence variation could improve cryptic species delimitation accuracy. This review sheds light on the potential application of mtDNA for pathogen diagnostics. This paper covers a brief description of qPCR and DNA barcoding as two major strategies enabling the diagnostics of plant pathogenic fungi and oomycetes. Both strategies are discussed along with the potential use of mtDNA, including their strengths and weaknesses.
真菌和卵菌包括许多影响全球作物的病原体。要有效控制这些病原体，需要在当地和国际贸易网络中筛选病原体，并监测田间的病原体接种体。所有这些关注点的基础都是对它们进行高效检测、鉴定和定量。在植物病原体诊断领域，分子标记的应用显示出了最大的前景。然而，尽管 DNA 方法具有不可置疑的优势，但它们的使用存在两个重大限制。第一个限制与由于病原体在植物材料中的分布极低且不均匀而导致的灵敏度不足有关。第二个限制与广泛使用的诊断检测方法无法检测隐生种有关。针对 mtDNA 似乎提供了解决这些挑战的方法。mtDNA 在微生物细胞中的高拷贝数使其成为开发高灵敏度检测方法的有吸引力的目标。此外，对不同病原体类群的先前研究表明，线粒体基因组序列变异可以提高隐生种划分的准确性。这篇综述探讨了 mtDNA 在病原体诊断中的潜在应用。本文简要描述了 qPCR 和 DNA 条码这两种主要策略，它们能够用于诊断植物病原真菌和卵菌。这两种策略都进行了讨论，并探讨了 mtDNA 的潜在用途，包括它们的优缺点。
