Barcoding of Life for Detection and Diagnosis of Diseases and Pests in Potato

DNA barcoding is a method for the identification of pathogenic and non-pathogenic biological species by comparing short DNA sequence or barcodes with known ones in database. The most commonly used gene markers for plants, animals, fungi and bacteria are rbcl, cox1, ITS and 16S rDNA, respectively. With the advent of high-throughput sequencing technology, discovery of novel genus/species specific barcode genes and metagenomic approach, this technology has evolved rapidly in the recent decade. Consequently, it has allowed the parallel identification of multiple biological entities. This technology has been widely used by plant biologists and plant pathologists to unveil the biological diversity. Barcoding of plant pathogens and pests not only allows accurate and rapid detection and diagnosis of diseases but also helps in designing and laying appropriate disease and pest management strategies for many crops, and hence it plays a vital role in food security by providing measures to control the spread of quarantine pests affecting particularly staple crops including potatoes. Also, metabarcoding can be used extensively to explore the biome, microbiome, virome and discover novel species using environmental DNA.