On 11 February, VIRTIGATION partners DCM CORP and JKI organised the project’s first lunchtime webinar on the topic of cross-protection.
Cross protection: A tool to combat plant diseases with mild virus isolates
The first VIRTIGATION lunchtime webinar brought together more than 30 stakeholders, including plant scientists, agro-industry actors, agricultural extension services and growers as key actors of the VIRTIGATION network. With EU plant protection policies set for a major overhaul under the new EU Commission, this online event came at a crucial time to inform plant health stakeholders about promising tools to fight devastating plant viruses like ToBRFV. With this webinar, VIRTIGATION partners DCM CORP and JKI also took the opportunity to inform stakeholders about recent project advances in the field of cross-protection, a key tool to combat plant diseases with mild virus isolates.
Scientific overview on cross-protection by JKI
Heiko Ziebell, principal investigator at JKI for the VIRTIGATION project, first provided a comprehensive scientific overview on cross-protection over the last decades. In his presentation, Ziebell highlighted the importance of using cross-protection as one tool in the plant protection toolbox, specifically against RNA viruses like ToBRFV. He also detailed the different mechanisms involved in cross-protection, such as coat protein mediated protection, RNA silencing mediated protection, spatial separation as well as superinfection exclusion.
Ziebell concluded his presentation by providing recent examples of applied cross-protection, as for example against the Zucchini yellow mosaic virus in cucurbits, or the Pepino mosaic virus in tomatoes.
Development of mild virus isolates into vaccines for cross-protection by DCM CORP
The first VIRTIGATION lunchtime webinar included also a presentation provided by Elise Vogel from DCM CORP. In her presentation, Vogel talked about the different requirements that mild virus isolates need to fulfil in order to qualify as potential candidate for a cross-protection based vaccine. In that regard, she also highlighted that cross-protective agents are plant protection products under EU regulation. This means that developers of such agents should comply with the procedures and legislation for the authorisation of plant protection products, in order to ensure efficacy, safety and quality, as well as user and consumer protection.
More on the topic of cross-protection to combat plant diseases with mild virus isolates:
- Recording of the VIRTIGATION lunchtime webinar on YouTube
- Introductory presentation by Heiko Ziebell from VIRTIGATION partner JKI
- Publication on the use of mild viruses for control of plant pathogenic viruses
