Improving grapevine virus diagnostics: Comparative analysis of three dsRNA enrichment methods for high-throughput sequencing

The extraction of double stranded (ds) RNA is a common enrichment method for the study, characterization, and detection of RNA viruses. In addition to RNA viruses, viroids, and some DNA viruses, can also be detected from dsRNA enriched extracts which makes it an attractive method for detecting a wide range of viruses when coupled with HTS. Several dsRNA enrichment strategies have been developed. The oldest utilizes the selective binding properties of dsRNA to cellulose. More recent methods are based on the application of anti-dsRNA antibodies and viral proteins with a specific affinity for dsRNA. All three methods have been used together with HTS for plant virus detection and study. To our knowledge, this is the first comparative study of three alternative dsRNA enrichment methods for virus and viroid detection through HTS using virus-infected, and healthy grapevine test plants. Extracts were performed in triplicate using methods based on, the anti-dsRNA antibody mAb rJ2 (Millipore Sigma Canada Ltd, Oakville, ON, Canada), the B2 dsRNA binding protein, and ReliaPrep™ Resin (Promega Corporation, Madison, WI, USA). The results show that the workflows for all three methods are effectively comparable, apart from purification steps related to antibody and binding protein construct. Both the cellulose resin and dsRNA binding protein construct methods provide highly enriched dsRNA extracts suitable for HTS with the B2 method providing a 36× and the ReliaPrep™ Resin a 163× increase in dsRNA enrichment compared to the mAb rJ2 antibody. The overall consistency and cost effectiveness of the ReliaPrep™ cellulose resin-based method and the potentially simpler adaptation to robotics made it the method of choice for future transfer to a semi-automated workflow.