New test spots mushroom-killing fungus without lab equipment
Kong F, Zhang Y, Zhang X, Zhang H, Li Y
Crispr
If you grow mushrooms at home or buy them from a local farm, this test could catch a crop-destroying mold days before it wipes out a harvest, using nothing more than the same cool temperatures the mushrooms are already growing in.
Mushroom farms can get wiped out by a fungal disease called cobweb disease, but testing for it usually needs lab equipment that keeps things warm, which doesn't work in a cool mushroom growing room. Researchers tweaked a CRISPR protein so it stays active at the same chilly temperatures mushrooms like, then paired it with a simple paper strip test, so a grower can check for the disease right on-site without any machines. The test is sensitive enough to catch even tiny amounts of the fungus and can tell it apart from similar, harmless species.
Key Findings
Engineered Cas12a variant (L.b. Cas12a Ultra) retains robust activity at 21-29°C, the typical mushroom cultivation temperature range, unlike wild-type LbaCas12a.
Combined with recombinase-aided amplification (RAA) into a single-tube system called RAA-CUTE, detecting the cobweb disease pathogen Cladobotryum with a detection limit of 10 fM.
Results are visualized instrument-free via lateral-flow strips or fluorescent probes and can distinguish closely related fungal species using tailored CRISPR crRNAs.
chevron_right Technical Summary
Scientists engineered a gene-editing protein that works at cool room temperatures to create a fast, instrument-free test for a fungal disease that attacks mushroom crops, potentially helping growers catch outbreaks on-site before they spread.
Abstract Preview
Original paper
Low-temperature-tolerant Cas12a enables instrument-free detection of fungal pathogens at mushroom cultivation temperatures.
Reliable molecular diagnosis at the point of care remains challenging owning to its dependence on specialized instrumentation and temperature control. However, clustered regularly interspaced short...
open_in_new Read full abstractAbstract copyright held by the original publisher.
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A mushroom is the fleshy, spore-bearing fruiting body of a fungus, typically produced above ground on soil or another food source. A toadstool generally refers to a poisonous mushroom.