Rose Rosette Disease: A Diagnostic Guide

Abstract

Rose Rosette Disease (RRD) is a common disease of roses, predominantly in North America. RRD is caused by the rose rosette virus (RRV), an emaravirus transmitted by the eriophyid mite Phyllocoptes fructiphilus Keifer. The RRD characteristic symptoms include deformed leaves, abnormal thorns, and witches’ brooms. Roses are important cultivated plants around the world. Most Rosa spp. and cultivated varieties such as climbers, hybrid teas, floribundas, and miniature roses are susceptible to the disease. The first RRD case was reported in California and Manitoba, Canada in the 1940s (Conners 1941; Martin 2014); since then RRD has been reported in various U.S. states (EPPO Global Database 2019), and recently in India (Chakraborty et al. 2017). Rose rosette virus detection relies on molecular assays.

Exploring the Host Range of Rose rosette Virus among Herbaceous Annual Plants

“…RRV symptoms in roses vary according to the cultivar, plant developmental stage, and between shooting branches of a bush [28][29][30]. Endpoint PCR and RT-qPCR are preferred for diagnostic detection of RRV infection in roses [7,25,28,31,32], although a few studies reported false negative results [5,13]. Given recent advances in the RT-PCR technology detecting RRV in infected rose leaves, we selected the most reliable RT-PCR primers to re-examine the host range of RRV.…”

“…Until the past decade, most reports using Koch's postulates to investigate RRV transmission to indicator plants have been assessed for visual evidence of disease with few attempts to use molecular diagnostic detection [7,19,26,27]. We employed the most recently developed and widely used diagnostic RT-PCR methods to amplify RRV sequences and to study virus accumulation in mechanically inoculated plants [23].…”

“…We tested four primer sets in Table 2 to identify the most reliable to use in this host range study (Figure 1A). The set 1 (RRVF/R) primers [23] are preferred by the National Clean Plant Network-Rose (NCPN-R) for diagnostic detection of RRV [7,8,26,27]. The set 2 (RRV-2F/2R) primers were reported for diagnostic detection of RRV in rose plants and require the addition of PCR amplification facilitators to reduce false negative outcomes [25].…”

“…Clean Plant Network-Rose (NCPN-R) for diagnostic detection of RRV [7,8,26,27]. The set 2 (RRV-2F/2R) primers were reported for diagnostic detection of RRV in rose plants and require the addition of PCR amplification facilitators to reduce false negative outcomes [25].…”

“…The first description of RRD was by Conners (1941) [4], and the causal agent, Rose rosette virus (RRV), was identified in 2011 [5]. The National Plant Diagnostic Network-Rose (NPDN-R) employs a standard reverse transcription (RT)-PCR test for monitoring the occurrence of RRV infection [6,7]. Roserosette.org is a website hosted by the Center for Invasive Species and Ecosystem Health at the University of Georgia to provide information and enable RRD reporting by the public and scientists [8].…”