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AzNativePlantVirus – Insights on the diversity and prevalence of viruses on Azorean native plants by metagenomics: implications on plant biodiversity conservation and crop production

Ref.º ACORES-01-0145-FEDER-000117
Regional research project
From 2019 to 2023

Summary

Main goal:

On the AzNativePlantVirus project, we intend to increase the scientific production of quality and oriented to smart specialization by exploring the virus diversity present on Azorean native plants through a metagenomic approach associated with High Throughput Sequencing (HTS) to achieve the following objectives:

Get for the very first-time knowledge on the virus diversity present in Azorean native plants;
Explore Azorean endemic plants to increase the knowledge on virus evolution;
Identify key driving forces for prevalence and distribution of viruses on Azorean native plant communities;
Distinguish indigenous from introduced viruses;
Identification and characterization of novel viruses and thereby contribute to expand the knowledge on plant virus diversity;
Identify potential emerging viruses that may affect crops and / or endemic flora;
Develop and/or improve diagnostic methods, to be used by stakeholders for routine diagnostic, to trace back virus evolution and dissemination, as well as for risk assessment.

Project description:

The lack of knowledge on viruses infecting Azorean native flora turns out the critical importance of the assessment of virus diversity present, as a support for conservation policies of endangered plant species and to avoid the spread of damaging viruses to undisturbed natural vegetation. As agricultural lands occupy a large proportion of the area of the Azores, native plant communities are often adjacent to agroecosystems, which favors virus dispersal between both ecosystems. Thus, analyzing virus diversity and population dynamics in these wild ecosystems is also of interest to understand virus epidemics in crops.

On this project, the viromes of five target endemic plant species will be study. For that, we will take advantage of the HTS technology, once the advances on these field have opened novel doors in discovery, diagnostics, and ecological and evolutionary studies in plant viruses.

To achieve the goals proposed, the project workplan comprise five interconnected workpackages:

WP1: Selection of sampling places and sample collection – aims to select and characterize the sampling areas of native flora on two Azorean islands, and plant sample collection from five endemic plants to feed WP2 and WP4.
WP2: Sequencing of viral genomes by HTS – aims to deep-sequence virus-derived small interfering RNAs (v-siRNAs) to assess the viral diversity present on the target native plants.
WP3: Bioinformatics and data integration – aims to perform bioinformatics analyses on the HTS data (WP2) and viral sequence data attained on WP4. In addition, at GIS lab, the data collected at WP1 to WP4 will be integrated.
WP4: Molecular detection and characterization of viruses – aims to perform a deeper molecular characterization of novel viruses, to develop PCR-based assays, and confirm the presence of viruses identified by HTS.
WP5: Project management and dissemination – aims the appropriate coordination of both technical and administrative work, as well the maximization of the project impact and dissemination.

Funding Institution

EFRD (FEDER) and Azores Government

Partners

Fundação Gaspar Futuoso / Universidade dos Açores

Project Coordinator

Duarte Mendonça

CBA team Coordinator

Duarte Manuel da Silva Mendonça