Pathogen co-Infections and Plant Diseases

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Background

Microbes in nature exist as complex communities and rarely exist as pure cultures. There is a recent trend in understanding that many plant diseases involve multiple pathogens, suggesting that co-infections presence and pathogenic roles in nature are more frequent and complex than previously recognized. Traditional microbe isolation and pathogen identification approach usually uncover a sole pathogen with strong virulence that is the causal disease agent, neglecting the possible existence of other pathogens with weaker virulence but contributing to the disease complex. With the advent of high-throughput DNA sequencing technology and microbe separation methods, communities of co-occurring pathogens have been identified in diseased tissue. Researchers are now investigating the synergism between pathogens that lead to complex disease states. Often benign microbes that may benefit their hosts can turn pathogenic in a multispecies consortium, exacerbated by changing environmental conditions. The underlying mechanisms that can lead to complex disease epidemiology are essential for investigation and novel disease management approaches.

This Research Topic addresses the interactions between two or more microbes that synergistically cause plant diseases. For example, fungi, oomycetes, bacteria and viruses. Interactions in complex diseases are sometimes subtle and hardly detectable. Some pathogens are less aggressive to host plants and often exist in nature's symbiotic or saprophytic state. This Research Topic explores new approaches to study disease complexes as well as their discovery and characterization. We will explore the role of non-pathogenic microbes establishing a consortium that can turn pathogenic and the dynamics of microbes within communities that can lead to the pathogenic state.

This Research Topic accepts various types of manuscripts that meet the journal's requirements, such as Review, Original Research, Hypothesis and Theory, Perspective, etc. Articles should be scientific and innovative, focusing on the following topics but not limited to:
● The occurrence and identification of the pathogen complex in plant diseases and the relevance of their interactions for the establishment of plant diseases
● Advanced diagnostics of the pathogen complex in plant diseases
● Role of non-pathogenic microbiome members for the establishment of a pathogen consortium
● Dynamic changes of distribution or mutual balances of different pathogens in a complex after infection.

Keywords: Multi pathogens, co-infection, synergism, antogonism, interspecies interactions

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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