Project title: RoseXPhLORE: NGS-Aided Exploration of Phytopathogenic Bacteria Diversity in the Rose Family for Sustainable Phage-Based Biocontrol Solutions

Project No.: lzp-2024/1-0080

Period: 1st January 2025 – 31 December 2027

Project costs: 300 000,00 EUR

Principal Investigator: Dr. biol. Andris Dišlers

Collaboration partner: Institute of Horticulture

Project summary:

The rose plant family (Rosaceae) representatives commonly suffer from diseases caused by phytopathogenic bacteria which are a serious economic burden. Increasing resistance among bacterial phytopathogens to conventional control methods urges the exploration of alternative measures for their control. Phage-based biocontrol is a promising environmentally friendly solution. In Latvia, the diversity and dynamics of horticulturally important phytopathogenic bacteria remain severely underexplored hindering the development of any alternative measures. The “RoseXPhLORE” project serves as a pilot scale study reducing this informational void and represents a dynamic exploration of the phytopathogenic bacteria diversity associated with the rose family in Latvia using Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS) coupled with the retrieval of the phages capable of killing the studied bacterial strains. During the project, we plan: (i) to apply NGS to identify prevalent bacterial pathogens posing a threat to the Rosaceae in Latvia; (ii) to isolate phages infecting such phytopathogenic bacteria; (iii) to elucidate the genomes of the isolated phages and select phages safe to be used in the development of phage-based biocontrol; (iv) to test the selected phages for the breadth of their host ranges and lysis efficiency against relevant strains; (v) to attempt formulating a phage “cocktail” prototype against the most prevalent and damaging phytopathogenic bacterial strains affecting rose family in Latvia.

Information published 02.01.2025.