New Rose Rosette Disease Research
The following is the abstract of a paper presented at the March 2010 239 th American Chemical Society National Meeting in San Francisco, CA:
Title: Investigation into the causal agent of rose rosette disease.
Author: Redington, James.
Author affiliation: Shippensburg University, Shippensburg, PA, USA.
Abstract: "Rose Rosette Disease (RRD) is a malady of wild and cultivated roses transmitted by the eriophyid mite Phyllocoptes fructiphilus. The causal agent of RRD which induces erratic growth in infected roses is unknown. Phytoplasma are intracellular bacteria exclusive to plant and insect species and have been identified as the causal agent for over 1000 different plant diseases. The pathol. growth of RRD, such as Witches' broom and phyllody, is also seen in some diseases caused by Phytoplasma and electron micrographs of RRD infected tissue have found spherical particles, roughly 120 to 200 nm in diam., that are not inconsistent with the size and appearance of Phytoplasma. We are testing this hypothesis using several PCR-based assays for the detection of Phytoplasma DNA in both infected rose and eriophyid mites."
In reading the abstract, it sounds like they have come to realize the cause of RRD and even more important, that it is found in a lot more plant diseases that just what affect roses. May be now more research will happen to find a way to erracte RRD.
Thanks for sharing this.
Liz
I'm surprised they chose the American Chemical Society meeitng for this. They would have gotten better feedback from the American Phytopathological Society members.
anntn6b, I just checked online & I think I know the answer. James Redington is an undergraduate student at Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania, majoring in chemistry.
James Redington's advisor is a biology professor, Dr. William Patrie. Professor Patrie is one of 2 faculty that teaches the following "TECHNIQUES IN BIOTECHNOLOGY" course:
http://webspace.ship.edu/wjpatr/TECHNIQUES%20IN%20BIOTECHNOLOGY%20syllabus%202010.htm
The second professor who teaches that course is Dr. Lucinda H. Elliott, see:
http://webspace.ship.edu/lhelli/ELLIOTTCV2009.pdf
I am very impressed with that course.
The following is another undergraduate research report:
http://webspace.ship.edu/wjpatr/Domain_Dictionary/RasGEF_Domain.htm
Here is a link that might be useful: link for above
Phytoplasmas are a 'new' thing as in they've only been recognized by scientists as a separate category for less than two decades.
A disease with symptoms similar to RRD has been reported (in juried literature) from greenhouse production of roses in Poland. A series of papers authored by Kaminska (and others) have tied that disease to phytoplasmas. (References to the papers are in the bibliography of my e book)
Kaminska has also many, many other papers reporting phytoplasmas in other diseased plants in his part of the world.
Another related paper from China talks about witches' broom of roses in a public park and the adjacent Pawlonia Tree that had witches broom symptoms. The phytoplasma that they said was on that stand of Pawlonia matched the material from those particular roses.
(For more on phytoplasmas, see their preceeding label MLOs, Micoplasma Like Osomething)
The really scarey part of phytoplasmas is that some are readily transmitted by leafhoppers according to Kaminska's greenhouse rose work.
A 2009 "First report of association of ÂCandidatus Phytoplasma asteris (16SrI group) with little leaf disease of rose (Rosa alba) in Indian" is at:
http://www.ndrs.org.uk/ndr.php?id=018050
The link for Gao's et.al. 2008 China Phytoplasma paper is:
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/119408286/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0
Here is a link that might be useful: Recent India paper link above
Fascinating. So the symptoms are pretty much right on target:
phyllody (the production of leaf-like flowers - the Green rose comes to mind immediately)
virescence (green flowers; ditto the Green rose)
witch's broom
proliferation of side shoots
increase in size of internodes
Certainly sounds promising.
Except Phyllody isn't at all common in RRD. I don't think I've ever seen it, in point of fact.
RRD makes different changes in the flowers. Sometimes multiple rows of sepals. Sometimes changes in the color of petals. Sometimes the emergence of petals directly from the stem with no receptacle at all. All this in addition to changes in the margins of leaves, stipules and sepals.
The pix with the India article don't have the ugliness of RRD. Hopefully CAB has that journal in its database.