New Virus Diagnostic Approaches to Ensuring the Ongoing Plant Biosecurity of Aotearoa New Zealand.

To protect New Zealand's unique ecosystems and primary industries, imported plant materials must be constantly monitored at the border for high-threat pathogens. Techniques adopted for this purpose must be robust, accurate, rapid, and sufficiently agile to respond to new and emerging threats. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR), especially real-time PCR, remains an essential diagnostic tool but it is now being complemented by high-throughput sequencing using both Oxford Nanopore and Illumina technologies, allowing unbiased screening of whole populations.

Fungal diversity in canopy soil of silver beech, Nothofagus menziesii (Nothofagaceae).

Adventitious roots in canopy soils associated with silver beech (Nothofagus menziesii Hook.f. (Nothofagaceae)) form ectomycorrhizal associations.

Characterization of the cyanobacteria and associated bacterial community from an ephemeral wetland in New Zealand.

New Zealand ephemeral wetlands are ecologically important, containing up to 12% of threatened native plant species and frequently exhibiting conspicuous cyanobacterial growth. In such environments, cyanobacteria and associated heterotrophs can influence primary production and nutrient cycling. Wetland communities, including bacteria, can be altered by increased nitrate and phosphate due to agricultural practices.

Prospects for analyzing ancient RNA in preserved materials.

An ever increasing wealth of ancient biological material is providing opportunities to study biomolecules. Animal, plant, and microbial samples dating back hundreds, thousands, and even millions of years have been preserved in a dry state under climatic conditions ranging from the arctic to hot deserts. Various small molecules, often crystalized or polymerized, have improved preservation.

Ancient RNA? RT-PCR of 50-year-old RNA identifies peach latent mosaic viroid.

The preservation of macromolecules is at best haphazard. Modern techniques have improved the detection of ancient DNA and proteins, but there is little information on the preservation of RNA. Fifty-year-old dried leaf material showing symptoms of peach calico disease was used successfully in RT-PCRs to amplify peach latent mosaic viroid (PLMVd) RNA and the mRNA for the large subunit of ribulose 1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase (rubisco).

Detection and analysis of endogenous badnaviruses in the New Zealand flora.

Background And Aims: Badnaviruses and their host-integrated DNA occur in tropical crops and a few northern temperate species. Following the discovery of a badnavirus on a subantarctic island with floristic links to New Zealand, we postulated that badnaviruses exist in the New Zealand flora. Badnavirus reverse transcriptase (RT) sequences consist of variable regions flanked by highly conserved regions.

Changes in the activities of antioxidant enzymes in response to virus infection and hormone treatment.

Activities of enzymes involved in the detoxification of reactive oxygen species (catalase, glutathione reductase, peroxidase and superoxide dismutase (SOD)) were examined in the leaves of Phaseolus vulgaris L. var. Top Crop treated with plant hormones and infected with a non-lesion-forming isolate of white clover mosaic potexvirus (WClMV).