Rolling Circle Amplification Is More Sensitive than PCR and Serology-Based Methods in Detection of Banana streak virus in Musa Germplasm

摘要

Banana (Musa sp.) is a popular and important crop among many communities in East Africa. Banana production is however threatened by the wide-spread banana streak disease (BSD), caused by Banana streak virus (BSV). The success of BSV management is inherently coupled to the availability of a sensitive indexing method. In this study, the sensitivity of three BSV detection techniques: rolling circle amplification (RCA), immunocapture PCR (with degenerate and Gold finger primers) and standard PCR was compared. A set of 32 BSD-asymptomatic samples were used to compare the techniques. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) for comparison of the four techniques showed that there were significant differences (P Musa tissues for BSV. This study unveils a more reliable BSV detection method, a need that has remained unaddressed for a long while.