Summary
Beet Yellows Virus (BYV) is one of the most destructive pathogens, causing Virus Yellows disease that underlies up to 50% yield losses in sugar beet. The recent regulatory ban on the use of neonicotinoid pesticides in EU has worsened the damage to the EU sugar beet industry. Given the urgency of the current problem caused by BYV, we propose to take advantage of a molecular biological approach to employ small molecular inhibitors called “artificial small interfering RNAs” (art-siRNAs), and demonstrate their ability to specifically bind to and deactivate BYVs within the plants. Our proposal substantially builds on fundamental research outputs from ERC Starting Grant GA680324. We aim to design art-siRNAs that are based on in vivo RNA structure features of BYV RNAs in sugar beet plants and demonstrate high efficacy in virus cleavage or degradation. We will comprehensively assess and validate the effectiveness, efficiency and safety of our structure-based designed art-siRNAs (ultraRNAs) within the laboratories, glasshouses and in-field. We envisage that our art-siRNAs will be applied to sugar beet seed pellets and will be taken up by the seedlings as they grow. When BYV infects these treated plants, we anticipate that our art-siRNAs will bind to the BYV RNA strands and deactivate them, preventing disease. We are confident that through this Proof of Concept we will be able to demonstrate the high performance of our ultraRNAs in terms of not only achieving high efficacy of BYV degradation, but also significantly reducing the quantity of art-siRNAs needed, ideal for incorporating into the seed coating. Ultimately, through follow-on work, our ambition is to provide sugar beet growers with an environmentally-friendly, safe, reliable, efficient, sustainable and long-lasting protection against the virus. Our proposed solution will help save the viability of the sugar beet industry within Europe, which contributes €15.6 billion to the GDPs of the EU-27.
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More information & hyperlinks
| Web resources: | https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/966855 |
| Start date: | 01-04-2021 |
| End date: | 31-03-2023 |
| Total budget - Public funding: | - 150 000,00 Euro |
Cordis data
Original description
Beet Yellows Virus (BYV) is one of the most destructive pathogens, causing Virus Yellows disease that underlies up to 50% yield losses in sugar beet. The recent regulatory ban on the use of neonicotinoid pesticides in EU has worsened the damage to the EU sugar beet industry. Given the urgency of the current problem caused by BYV, we propose to take advantage of a molecular biological approach to employ small molecular inhibitors called “artificial small interfering RNAs” (art-siRNAs), and demonstrate their ability to specifically bind to and deactivate BYVs within the plants. Our proposal substantially builds on fundamental research outputs from ERC Starting Grant GA680324. We aim to design art-siRNAs that are based on in vivo RNA structure features of BYV RNAs in sugar beet plants and demonstrate high efficacy in virus cleavage or degradation. We will comprehensively assess and validate the effectiveness, efficiency and safety of our structure-based designed art-siRNAs (ultraRNAs) within the laboratories, glasshouses and in-field. We envisage that our art-siRNAs will be applied to sugar beet seed pellets and will be taken up by the seedlings as they grow. When BYV infects these treated plants, we anticipate that our art-siRNAs will bind to the BYV RNA strands and deactivate them, preventing disease. We are confident that through this Proof of Concept we will be able to demonstrate the high performance of our ultraRNAs in terms of not only achieving high efficacy of BYV degradation, but also significantly reducing the quantity of art-siRNAs needed, ideal for incorporating into the seed coating. Ultimately, through follow-on work, our ambition is to provide sugar beet growers with an environmentally-friendly, safe, reliable, efficient, sustainable and long-lasting protection against the virus. Our proposed solution will help save the viability of the sugar beet industry within Europe, which contributes €15.6 billion to the GDPs of the EU-27.Status
CLOSEDCall topic
ERC-2020-POCUpdate Date
27-04-2024
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