PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Randy F. Lacey
AU  - Blake A. Sullivan-Hill
AU  - Julie R. Deslippe
AU  - Robert A. Keyzers
AU  - Monica L. Gerth
TI  - The Fatty Acid Methyl Ester (FAME) profile of <em>Phytophthora agathidicida</em> and its potential use as diagnostic tool
AID  - 10.1101/2021.04.06.437983
DP  - 2021 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 2021.04.06.437983
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2021/04/07/2021.04.06.437983.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2021/04/07/2021.04.06.437983.full
AB  - Phytophthora diseases cause devastation to crops and native ecosystems worldwide. In New Zealand, Phytophthora agathidicida is threatening the survival of kauri, an endemic, culturally and ecologically important tree species. The current method for detecting P. agathidicida is a soil bating assay that is time-consuming and requires high levels of expertise to assess, thus limiting the analytical sample throughput. Here, we characterized the fatty acid methyl ester (FAME) profile of P. agathidicida. We also compared it with the FAME profile of P. cinnamomi and assessed the efficacy of FAME analysis as a diagnostic tool for detecting the pathogen in soil samples. In FAME analysis, the total fatty acid content is isolated from a sample and converted to FAMEs for analysis, a process that takes less than a day. Unique fatty acid acyl chains can serve as biomarkers for specific organisms. We detected 12 fatty acids in P. agathidicida, two of which (20:4ω6 and 20:5ω3) show promise as potential Phytophthora specific biomarkers. Collectively, these findings advance our fundamental understanding of P. agathidicida biology and provide a promising technique to increase the rate of sample processing and the speed of pathogen detection for P. agathidicida in soil.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.