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.

中文翻译：

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Phytophthora agathidicida 的脂肪酸甲酯 (FAME) 谱及其作为诊断工具的潜在用途

疫霉病对全世界的农作物和本地生态系统造成破坏。在新西兰，Phytophthora agathidicida正在威胁贝壳杉这种地方性、具有文化和生态重要性的树种的生存。目前用于检测P.agathidicida 的方法是一种土壤软化测定法，它耗时且需要高水平的专业知识来评估，从而限制了分析样品的吞吐量。在这里，我们表征了P.agathidicida的脂肪酸甲酯 (FAME) 谱。我们还将其与P. cinnamomi的 FAME 配置文件进行了比较并评估了 FAME 分析作为检测土壤样品中病原体的诊断工具的功效。在 FAME 分析中，从样品中分离出总脂肪酸含量并将其转化为 FAME 进行分析，这一过程只需不到一天的时间。独特的脂肪酸酰基链可以作为特定生物的生物标志物。我们在P.agathidicida 中检测到 12 种脂肪酸，其中两种（20:4ω6 和 20:5ω3）有望作为潜在的疫霉属特异性生物标志物。总的来说，这些发现推进了我们对P.agathidicida生物学的基本理解，并提供了一种有前途的技术，以提高土壤中P.agathidicida的样品处理速度和病原体检测速度。