Genetic engineering standby in citrus disease battle:
Genetic engineering standby in citrus disease battle :
A pandemic is destroying Florida orange groves. The disease, citrus greening, also is spreading citrus plantations in Texas and California, threatening more than $ 3 billion a year industry.
If left unaddressed, the entire U.S. citrus industry would disappear and, as Senator Bill Nelson of Florida, "We're going to end up paying $ 5 for an orange - and we have to be one imported from somewhere else."
Citrus Greening is spread by bacteria that block nutrients trees "and the water channels and avoid the fruit ripens.
"It's like choking the tree from the inside out," said David Banda, a state molecular biologist at the University of Washington and biochemist who is collaborating with a broad interdisciplinary team to fight the disease.
The disease spreads Insects
The bacteria are hosted and spread by an insect related to aphids and whiteflies called the Asian citrus psyllid (pronounced sill-id). It is believed that the disease has spread in China in the 2000s. Citrus greening has destroyed the citrus industry in Jamaica.
The invasive psyllids citrus trees pierce with a needle-shaped nozzle, similar to the way a mosquito infects its victims. As supplies of water and nutrients from the tree, the psyllid injected disease-causing bacteria, which then spread to the rest of the plant.
To combat this aggressive disease, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has funded a multi-faceted initiative, multi-institutional participation of more than 40 researchers located in various states. Scientists are studying the ecological consequences of the disease, the biology of the citrus trees, insects and the mechanism by which the bacteria spread insect.
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Pesticides have been of some use in controlling psyllids but researchers are concerned that insects develop resistance. And biocontrol - siccing good insects to prey on the poor - have proved ineffective because the psyllid just inbred predators.
That's where David Gang enters the picture.
Altering the insect
The gang laboratory at the Institute of Biological Chemistry WSU focuses on the use of new technologies such as genomics and proteomics to study the mechanisms of plant defense, particularly the chemicals that help plants survive and fight pathogens and pests. The project, funded by the USDA, Gang and colleagues isolated and sequenced the genes that are expressed in the psyllids, as they feed on citrus plants.
Genetic engineering standby in citrus disease battle :
If left unaddressed, the entire U.S. citrus industry would disappear and, as Senator Bill Nelson of Florida, "We're going to end up paying $ 5 for an orange - and we have to be one imported from somewhere else."
Citrus Greening is spread by bacteria that block nutrients trees "and the water channels and avoid the fruit ripens.
"It's like choking the tree from the inside out," said David Banda, a state molecular biologist at the University of Washington and biochemist who is collaborating with a broad interdisciplinary team to fight the disease.
The disease spreads Insects
The bacteria are hosted and spread by an insect related to aphids and whiteflies called the Asian citrus psyllid (pronounced sill-id). It is believed that the disease has spread in China in the 2000s. Citrus greening has destroyed the citrus industry in Jamaica.
The invasive psyllids citrus trees pierce with a needle-shaped nozzle, similar to the way a mosquito infects its victims. As supplies of water and nutrients from the tree, the psyllid injected disease-causing bacteria, which then spread to the rest of the plant.
To combat this aggressive disease, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has funded a multi-faceted initiative, multi-institutional participation of more than 40 researchers located in various states. Scientists are studying the ecological consequences of the disease, the biology of the citrus trees, insects and the mechanism by which the bacteria spread insect.
Want access to the latest agricultural news every day? Newspaper Sign up for email newsletter Farm West.
Pesticides have been of some use in controlling psyllids but researchers are concerned that insects develop resistance. And biocontrol - siccing good insects to prey on the poor - have proved ineffective because the psyllid just inbred predators.
That's where David Gang enters the picture.
Altering the insect
The gang laboratory at the Institute of Biological Chemistry WSU focuses on the use of new technologies such as genomics and proteomics to study the mechanisms of plant defense, particularly the chemicals that help plants survive and fight pathogens and pests. The project, funded by the USDA, Gang and colleagues isolated and sequenced the genes that are expressed in the psyllids, as they feed on citrus plants.
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