Sources: Ismael E. 1xbet best casino website , ibadillo@k-state.edu;
and Anna Whitfield, 785-532-3364, aewtospo@k-state.edu
News release prepared by: Greg Tammen, 785-532-4486, gtammen@k-state.edu
Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2013
Pest control: Student researcher wins grant to study 1xbet best casino website disease and how to stop it
MANHATTAN -- A competitive grant is helping a Kansas State University doctoral student turn the 1xbet best casino website responsible for spreading one of the worst plant diseases into a tool that stifles the disease's transmission.
Ismael E. 1xbet best casino website , a plant pathology doctoral student, Puerto Rico, recently was awarded a predoctoral fellowship grant of more than ,000 from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture. The competitive scholarship is awarded to agriculture students who have two more years to complete their doctoral degree programs. Recipients receive two years of funding for 1xbet best casino website expenditures, tuition, a graduate 1xbet best casino website salary and conference travel.
For Badillo-Vargas, the fellowship advances his research on the tomato spotted wilt 1xbet best casino website and its relationship to thrips -- tiny, winged insects that carry and spread the plant disease.
Tomato spotted wilt 1xbet best casino website is one of the 10 most devastating plant viruses, according to the USDA. The 1xbet best casino website , which kills a variety of food-producing plants, causes about 0 million in U.S. crop losses and roughly billion in global crop losses every year.
The 1xbet best casino website is transmitted to plants by the western flower thrips. The 1xbet best casino website , however, does not harm the thrips that carry it and replicate the 1xbet best casino website . Badillo-Vargas wants to understand why.
He is looking at how the tomato spotted wilt 1xbet best casino website affects thrips at the molecular level. Badillo-Vargas is identifying which of the insect's proteins interact with the 1xbet best casino website . In doing so, he and other researchers can target these proteins with genetic techniques that could turn off the insect's immunity to the 1xbet best casino website .
"The idea is that this may keep the insect from being able to spread the 1xbet best casino website anymore," Badillo-Vargas said. "It could stop the insect from being able to carry the tomato spotted wilt 1xbet best casino website or even kill the insect with the 1xbet best casino website because its defense system would be gone. Ultimately it would let us control the spread of the 1xbet best casino website and also the insect itself, which is an agricultural pest and disease vector."
Badillo-Vargas is developing a RNA interference, or RNAi -- a short sequence of genetic information that could knock down the insect's protective genes. The RNAi could be delivered through a spray that only affects 1xbet best casino website or possibly even delivered to 1xbet best casino website by the plants themselves.
Badillo-Vargas is using a partial transcriptome of the thrip's genes that was produced by Dorith Rotenberg, research assistant professor of plant pathology. The transcriptome is a scientific tool that acts as a reference catalog for certain genes in the 1xbet best casino website . Rotenberg is working to sequence the thrip's genome, which will be a complete genetic blueprint of the insect and all of its genes.
"With the partial transcriptome I'm starting to look at certain genes that I believe can be silenced with RNAi because they have a potential interaction between the 1xbet best casino website and the insect," Badillo-Vargas said. "Some of these molecules were able to be silenced in other insects when RNAi tools were used on them. In some cases it even killed the insect."
The research will build on a study by Badillo-Vargas that was published in the August 2012 edition of the Journal of Virology. It compared the differential proteins expressed by healthy thrips with those from thrips infected with the tomato spotted wilt 1xbet best casino website . It showed that thrips have an early response to the 1xbet best casino website infection and when the 1xbet best casino website is the most active.
"I was thrilled to learn that Ismael had received this fellowship," said Anna Whitfield, associate professor of plant pathology and Badillo-Vargas' major adviser. "It's very competitive and many people apply, but very few are selected. It's a wonderful fellowship that will benefit Ismael professionally and advance research on tomato spotted wilt 1xbet best casino website and thrips."