Molecular Detection Methods for Forest Pathogens

作者：Jin Wu, Tingting Dai, Xizhuo Wang, Yonglin Wang · 发表于：Critical Reviews in Plant Sciences · 年份：2025 · DOI：10.1080/07352689.2025.2489776 · 被引用次数：4 · 研究领域：Plant Virus Research Studies、CRISPR and Genetic Engineering、Insect symbiosis and bacterial influences

Forests dominate terrestrial ecosystems on earth and are frequently attacked by a wide range of pathogens, including fungi, oomycetes, nematodes, and bacteria. Forest diseases have resulted in significant losses of forest ecology and welfare worldwide. Due to the occurrence of crypticity during early infection and extensive damage, forest diseases have threatened woody resources and forest ecosystems. Early rapid accurate diagnostics of forest pathogens are of paramount importance to guide effective control measures. In the last two decades, we have witnessed technological advances in forestry disease diagnostics based on the detection of nucleic acids to meet the diagnostic time and sensitivity requirements. This review focuses on fast and reliable molecular methods to detect forest pathogens at an early stage of disease symptoms supported by polymerase chain reaction (PCR), isothermal amplification methods, including recombinase polymerase amplification (RPA) and loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP), as well as next-generation diagnostics with clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)-Cas systems. We subsequently discuss the significance, advantages, and limitations of such methods and provide an overview of their current applications to forest pathogens. Finally, we propose challenges and opportunities for the molecular detection of forest pathogens relevant to forest ecosystem health.