P-210 - Viruses associated with soybean in Mississippi

Soybean is currently the top row crop and second most important agricultural commodity in Mississippi behind poultry. The recent discovery of cotton leafroll dwarf virus (CLRDV) in cotton production fields across the U.S. highlighted the need for regular virus surveillance in major crops. Therefore, here we present results of an organized study, funded by the Mississippi Soybean Promotion Board, aimed at early discovery of known and potentially unknown viruses and design of methods for their detection. The study combines traditional field scouting with up-to-date lab and biocomputing approaches to evaluate the viruses associated with soybean production in MS. High-throughput sequencing (HTS) data generated on an Illumina platform, applying 2x150 pair-end methodology on purified and ribo-depleted total RNAs, revealed a range of known viruses (SMV, SVNV, BPMV) along with some less expected or novel viruses of potential future impact. In addition, we applied some traditional virological methods, such as mechanical and insect transmissions and electron microscopy to better characterize some of virus isolates. In a few samples, besides data from phytopathogenic viruses, we identified genome sequences of a possible mycovirus nature, with a primary origin yet to be determined.