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Persoons, A.

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Persoons
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Persoons, A.
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0000-0002-2003-9776

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2017 - 20193
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    MARPLE, a point-of-care, strain-level disease diagnostics and surveillance tool for complex fungal pathogens
    (BioMed Central, 2019) Radhakrishnan, G.V.; Cook, N.M.; Bueno Sancho, V.; Lewis, C. M.; Persoons, A.; Debebe, A.; Heaton, M.; Davey, P.E.; Abeyo Bekele Geleta; Alemayehu, Y.; Badebo, A.; Barnett, M.; Bryant, R.; Chatelain, J.; Xianming Chen; Suomeng Dong; Henriksson, T.; Holdgate, S.; Justesen, A.F.; Kalous, J.; Zhensheng Kang; Laczny, S.; Legoff, J.P.; Lesch, D.; Richards, T.; Randhawa, H.S.; Thach, T.; Meinan Wang; Hovmoller, M.S.; Hodson, D.P.; Saunders, D.G.O.
    Background: Effective disease management depends on timely and accurate diagnosis to guide control measures. The capacity to distinguish between individuals in a pathogen population with specific properties such as fungicide resistance, toxin production and virulence profiles is often essential to inform disease management approaches. The genomics revolution has led to technologies that can rapidly produce high-resolution genotypic information to define individual variants of a pathogen species. However, their application to complex fungal pathogens has remained limited due to the frequent inability to culture these pathogens in the absence of their host and their large genome sizes. Results: Here, we describe the development of Mobile And Real-time PLant disEase (MARPLE) diagnostics, a portable, genomics-based, point-of-care approach specifically tailored to identify individual strains of complex fungal plant pathogens. We used targeted sequencing to overcome limitations associated with the size of fungal genomes and their often obligately biotrophic nature. Focusing on the wheat yellow rust pathogen, Puccinia striiformis f.sp. tritici (Pst), we demonstrate that our approach can be used to rapidly define individual strains, assign strains to distinct genetic lineages that have been shown to correlate tightly with their virulence profiles and monitor genes of importance. Conclusions: MARPLE diagnostics enables rapid identification of individual pathogen strains and has the potential to monitor those with specific properties such as fungicide resistance directly from field-collected infected plant tissue in situ. Generating results within 48 h of field sampling, this new strategy has far-reaching implications for tracking plant health threats.
    Publication
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    Potential for re-emergence of wheat stem rust in the United Kingdom
    (Nature Research, 2018) Lewis, C. M.; Persoons, A.; Bebber, D.; Kigathi, R.; Maintz, J.; Findlay, K.; Bueno Sancho, V.; Corredor-Moreno, P.; Harrington, S.A.; Ngonidzashe Kangara; Berlin, A.; Garcia, R.; German, S.E.; Hanzalova, A.; Hodson, D.P.; Hovmoller, M.S.; Huerta-Espino, J.; Imtiaz, M.; Mirza, J.I.; Justesen, A.F.; Niks, R.; Ali Omrani; Patpour, M.; Pretorius, Z.; Ramin Roohparvar; Sela, H.; Singh, R.P.; Steffenson, B.; Visser, B.; Fenwick, P.; Thomas, J.; Wulff, B.B.H.; Saunders, D.G.O.
    Wheat stem rust, a devastating disease of wheat and barley caused by the fungal pathogen Puccinia graminis f. sp. tritici, was largely eradicated in Western Europe during the mid-to-late twentieth century. However, isolated outbreaks have occurred in recent years. Here we investigate whether a lack of resistance in modern European varieties, increased presence of its alternate host barberry and changes in climatic conditions could be facilitating its resurgence. We report the first wheat stem rust occurrence in the United Kingdom in nearly 60 years, with only 20% of UK wheat varieties resistant to this strain. Climate changes over the past 25 years also suggest increasingly conducive conditions for infection. Furthermore, we document the first occurrence in decades of P. graminis on barberry in the UK . Our data illustrate that wheat stem rust does occur in the UK and, when climatic conditions are conducive, could severely harm wheat and barley production.
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    Pathogenomic analysis of wheat yellow rust lineages detects seasonal variation and host specificity
    (Oxford University Press, 2017) Bueno Sancho, V.; Persoons, A.; Hubbard A.; Cabrera-Quio, L. E.; Lewis, C. M.; Corredor-Moreno, P.; Bunting, D. C. E.; Ali, S.; Soonie Chng; Hodson, D.P.; Madariaga Burrows, R.; Bryson, R.; Thomas, J.; Holdgate, S.; Saunders, D.G.O.
    Recent disease outbreaks caused by (re-)emerging plant pathogens have been associated with expansions in pathogen geographic distribution and increased virulence. For example, in the past two decades’ wheat yellow (stripe) rust, Puccinia striiformis f. sp. tritici, has seen the emergence of new races that are adapted to warmer temperatures, have expanded virulence profiles, and are more aggressive than previous races, leading to wide-scale epidemics. Here, we used field-based genotyping to generate high-resolution data on P. striiformis genetics and carried out global population analysis. We also undertook comparative analysis of the 2014 and 2013 UK populations and assessed the temporal dynamics and host specificity of distinct pathogen genotypes. Our analysis revealed that P. striiformis lineages recently detected in Europe are extremely diverse and in fact similar to globally dispersed populations. In addition, we identified a considerable shift in the UK P. striiformis population structure including the first identification of one infamous race known as Kranich. Next, by establishing the genotype of both the pathogen and host within a single infected field sample, we uncovered evidence for varietal specificity for genetic groups of P. striiformis. Finally, we found potential seasonal specificity for certain genotypes of the pathogen with several lineages identified only in samples collected in late spring and into the summer, whereas one lineage was identified throughout the wheat growing season. Our discovery of which wheat varieties are susceptible to which specific P. striiformis isolates, and when those isolates are prevalent throughout the year, represents a powerful tool for disease management.
    Publication