School of Biological Sciences, Victoria University of Wellington, PO Box 600 Wellington 6140, New Zealand.
Centre for Biodiscovery, Victoria University of Wellington, PO Box 600 Wellington 6140, New Zealand.
FEMS Microbiol Lett. 2021 Sep 8;368(17). doi: 10.1093/femsle/fnab113.
Phytophthora diseases cause devastation to crops and native ecosystems worldwide. In New Zealand, Phytophthora agathidicida is threatening the survival of kauri, an endemic, culturally and ecologically important tree species. The current method for detecting P. agathidicida is a soil bating assay that is time-consuming and requires high levels of expertise to assess, thus limiting the analytical sample throughput. Here, we characterized the fatty acid methyl ester (FAME) profile of P. agathidicida. We also compared it with the FAME profile of P. cinnamomi and assessed the efficacy of FAME analysis as a diagnostic tool for detecting the pathogen in soil samples. In FAME analysis, the total fatty acid content is isolated from a sample and converted to FAMEs for analysis, a process that takes less than a day. Unique fatty acid acyl chains can serve as biomarkers for specific organisms. We detected 12 fatty acids in P. agathidicida, two of which (20:4ω6 and 20:5ω3) show promise as potential Phytophthora specific biomarkers. Collectively, these findings advance our fundamental understanding of P. agathidicida biology and provide a promising technique to increase the rate of sample processing and the speed of pathogen detection for P. agathidicida in soil.
疫霉属病害对全球作物和本地生态系统造成严重破坏。在新西兰，疫霉属（Phytophthora agathidicida）正威胁着本土、具有文化和生态重要性的罗汉松的生存。目前检测疫霉属（Phytophthora agathidicida）的方法是土壤浸提分析，该方法耗时且需要高水平的专业知识进行评估，从而限制了分析样品的通量。在这里，我们对疫霉属（Phytophthora agathidicida）的脂肪酸甲酯（FAME）图谱进行了特征描述。我们还将其与胶疫霉（Phytophthora cinnamomi）的 FAME 图谱进行了比较，并评估了 FAME 分析作为一种诊断工具在检测土壤样本中病原体的功效。在 FAME 分析中，从样品中分离出总脂肪酸并转化为 FAMEs 进行分析，这一过程不到一天。独特的脂肪酸酰链可作为特定生物的生物标志物。我们在疫霉属（Phytophthora agathidicida）中检测到 12 种脂肪酸，其中两种（20:4ω6 和 20:5ω3）显示出作为潜在的疫霉属特异性生物标志物的潜力。总的来说，这些发现推进了我们对疫霉属（Phytophthora agathidicida）生物学的基本认识，并提供了一种有前途的技术，以提高土壤中疫霉属（Phytophthora agathidicida）样品处理的速度和病原体检测的速度。
