GENOMIC APPROACHES IN VIRUS DIAGNOSTICS A PERSONAL ASSESSMENT OF REALITIES WHEN FACED WITH VIRUSES IN A PLANT BIOSECURITY CONTEXT

摘要

During the past 30 years, most plant pathogenic viruses and viroids have been characterized in terms of their base sequence. A few, such as viruses in the family Luteoviridae, were harder to crack than others but recently yielded to this approach (e.g. Huang et al., 2005). With the primary base sequences of these viruses determined, it was possible to infer relationships but also to identify the positions of functional units. Additionally, it was often possible to unravel the complex interactions in time and space involved with genome expression. Thus, because of their relatively small genome sizes, viruses were in the vanguard of what has come to be grouped under the generic title "omic" technologies; the word "transcriptomics" was not used to describe these early technological thrusts but might be now.