Project title
Virome in a vineyard

Project leader
Freeborough, M

Institution
University of Stellenbosch. Department of Genetics

Team members
Burger, J G
Freeborough, M
Maree, H J
Engelbrecht, M

Project description
Grapevine is subject to infection with a diversity of viruses from numerous different genera. However very little sequence information is available on South African isolates of many of these viruses. This makes design of PCR primers to local isolates difficult, resulting in problematic detection of these viruses with known diagnostic primers. The aim of this project is to: A) validate the use of environmental shotgun sequencing techniques for the detection of plant infecting RNA viruses and B) to determine the sequences of South African isolates of grapevine infecting viruses, with the view to better design of PCR primers for reliable molecular detection assays.

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