{"id":14,"date":"2016-04-05T21:59:11","date_gmt":"2016-04-05T21:59:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/projects.nib.si\/phew\/?page_id=14"},"modified":"2022-11-04T15:20:16","modified_gmt":"2022-11-04T14:20:16","slug":"summary","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/projects.nib.si\/phew\/summary\/","title":{"rendered":"Project overview"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Viruses pose an important threat to many agricultural crops worldwide, causing great financial losses and a decrease in the quantity and quality of the products. Besides their role as plant pathogens, there is little information about the other roles of plant viruses in ecosystems.<\/p>\n<p>Although most studies in plant virology have focused on pathogens, a broader look reveals more\u00a0<strong>intricate<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0<strong>stable<\/strong>\u00a0interactions, especially in\u00a0<strong>wild plant communities<\/strong>, which are often latently infected with viruses without any clear symptoms, thus representing a potential\u00a0<strong>viral reservoir<\/strong>. Although seemingly non-harmful, these viruses pose a threat because they can be transmitted to crops, cause disease and\u00a0<strong>emerge as new pathogens<\/strong>\u00a0of crops. Of particular interest are interactions between viruses and\u00a0<strong>long-lived perennial plants<\/strong>, which are underrepresented in agricultural systems, but dominant in nature and can serve as infection sources or overwintering hosts of different plant viruses.<\/p>\n<p>Until recently, there was a lack of appropriate analytical tools, which could help decipher the\u00a0<strong>complex relationships\u00a0<\/strong>between\u00a0<strong>viruses<\/strong>,\u00a0<strong>plants<\/strong>, and the\u00a0<strong>environment<\/strong>. The advent of\u00a0<strong>high-throughput sequencing<\/strong>\u00a0(HTS) technologies has led to a revolution in plant virus detection and now enables\u00a0<strong>fast identification<\/strong>\u00a0of all viruses present in a sample\u00a0<strong>simultaneously<\/strong>. Using shotgun metagenomics HTS approaches,\u00a0<strong>complete viromes<\/strong>\u00a0of plants or various environmental samples can now be obtained. A few metagenomic studies have shown that viruses are abundant in\u00a0<strong>wild plants<\/strong>\u00a0from different climates as well as in\u00a0<strong>aquatic environments<\/strong>, such as\u00a0<strong>freshwater<\/strong>,\u00a0<strong>wastewater<\/strong>,\u00a0<strong>reclaimed water<\/strong>, and\u00a0<strong>animal feces<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>The majority of the plant pathogenic viruses so far recovered from environmental waters are very\u00a0<strong>stable<\/strong>\u00a0and their dissemination in streams and rivers can enable\u00a0<strong>their long-distance spread<\/strong>. The release of infective plant virions from\u00a0<strong>urban environment<\/strong>\u00a0(human) to the wider environment has also been proposed and demonstrated recently for environmentally persistent viruses. This could be especially problematic in light of increased\u00a0<strong>irrigation<\/strong>\u00a0and the use of\u00a0<strong>hydroponic systems<\/strong>\u00a0in agriculture. Very little is known about virus infections in\u00a0<strong>aquatic plants<\/strong>\u00a0and even less about the possible\u00a0<strong>water-mediated transmission<\/strong>\u00a0of plant viruses to aquatic plants.<\/p>\n<p>The <strong>aim<\/strong> of this project is to address and answer some of the most pressing questions regarding the gaps in knowledge described above.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Can plant viruses released from\u00a0<strong>wastewater<\/strong>\u00a0persist in the river and possibly i<strong>nfect aquatic plants<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0<strong>river bank vegetation<\/strong>?<\/li>\n<li>Is the virome observed in\u00a0<strong>river water<\/strong>\u00a0influenced by the virome of\u00a0<strong>plants growing in<\/strong>\u00a0<strong>or near the water?<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Is there any\u00a0<strong>exchange<\/strong>\u00a0of (or\u00a0<strong>overlap<\/strong>\u00a0in) plant virus species between\u00a0<strong>river<\/strong>\u00a0<strong>water<\/strong>,\u00a0<strong>proximal aquatic<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0<strong>terrestrial wild<\/strong>\u00a0<strong>plants<\/strong>, and\u00a0<strong>crops<\/strong>?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The outcomes of this project will help to elucidate\u00a0<strong>the flux of plant viruses<\/strong>\u00a0between different parts of a\u00a0<strong>fragmented anthropogenic ecosystem<\/strong>. Analysis of samples from different constituent parts of the ecosystem, including urban\u00a0<strong>wastewater, recipient river<\/strong>,\u00a0<strong>submerged<\/strong>,\u00a0<strong>bank<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0<strong>surrounding wild vegetation<\/strong>, and selected\u00a0<strong>crops<\/strong>, will give an overview of the\u00a0<strong>viromes present in the environment<\/strong>. Very likely\u00a0<strong>new virus species<\/strong>\u00a0or\u00a0<strong>new associations of known virus species<\/strong>\u00a0with\u00a0<strong>different hosts<\/strong>\u00a0will be revealed. Network inference and network analyses will expose\u00a0<strong>possible overlapping virus species<\/strong>\u00a0in\u00a0<strong>viromes from different environments<\/strong>. Finally, the experimental system for\u00a0<strong>viral infections of crop<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0<strong>aquatic plants<\/strong>\u00a0will give insights into the\u00a0<strong>biological relevance<\/strong>\u00a0of the\u00a0<strong>plant viruses<\/strong>\u00a0found in the\u00a0<strong>environment<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Viruses pose an important threat to many agricultural crops worldwide, causing great financial losses and a decrease in the quantity and quality of the products. Besides their role as plant pathogens, there is little information about the other roles of plant viruses in ecosystems. Although most studies in plant virology have focused on pathogens, a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":2,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"page-fullwidth.php","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-14","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P7OqMV-e","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects.nib.si\/phew\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/14","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects.nib.si\/phew\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects.nib.si\/phew\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.nib.si\/phew\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.nib.si\/phew\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14"}],"version-history":[{"count":33,"href":"https:\/\/projects.nib.si\/phew\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/14\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":466,"href":"https:\/\/projects.nib.si\/phew\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/14\/revisions\/466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects.nib.si\/phew\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}