Rose rosette disease: Recent advances on molecular diagnostic tools

Abstract

Rose rosette emaravirus (RRV, genus Emaravirus), the causal agent of rose rosette disease, is the topmost pathogen of concern for the rose industry in the United States. The only strategy available for disease management is early identification and eradication of the infected plants. Highly reliable, specific, and sensitive detection assays are thus required to test and confirm the presence of RRV in suspected plant samples. RRV is only a recently characterized virus and hence limits the diagnostic tools available for its early detection. With a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Specialty Crop Research Initiative (SCRI) project sponsorship, several diagnostic tools including end-point reverse transcriptionpolymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and RT-qPCR assays targeting single and multiple genes targets were developed for routine diagnostics. This review introduces an overall view of the different diagnostic tools developed, which are reliable, highly sensitive, and can be easily implemented for detection and identification in laboratories providing diagnostic services and confirmation of RRV-infected samples.