Development of a real-time assay for detection of Synchytrium endobioticum, a quarantine pathogen of potato

Potato wart disease caused by a quarantine pathogen Synchytrium endobioticum may cause up to 50-100% of yield losses; moreover, contaminated fields may be scheduled for 20 years. To provide an appropriate and timely control of this pathogen, reliable, simple, and robust diagnostic tools are needed. In this study we developed a test system for the real-time PCR detection and identification of S. endobioticum suitable for the use in qPCR micromatrices providing multiplex simultaneous detection of a range of pathogens. The designed primers and probe successfully tested for specificity using 10 samples of non-target fungal pathogens of potato. Detection limit of the test system was 0.1 pg of DNA per reaction. Reproducibility assay showed the standard error for C_t value did not exceed 4.5%. The further validation of the test system using culture samples of S. endobioticum of different pathotypes and infected field samples of potato should be done, and the efficient protocol for the pathogen detection in soil samples should be developed in future studies.