Dear Colleagues,

Virus and viroid diseases can cause serious crop losses and thus are of global economically importance.

Advances in high-throughput sequencing (HTS) and bioinformatics have resulted in the discovery of many new plant viruses in recent years. With novel plant viruses and new strains constantly emerging, sensitive, and reliable diagnostic methods are crucial for correct disease-causing identification. It is important to investigate the functions of the viral genes and their interactions in their host plants and vectors.

Additionally, the development of effective and stable virus/viroid control mechanisms is necessary for sustainable agriculture and integrated management strategies. Understanding the behaviour of viruliferous vectors is significantly important for the development of integrated vector management approaches.

Other important resources are old virus collections that have been collected by plant virologists in the past. Often, these collections were characterised by symptomology and host range studies or serological means but not with modern molecular biology tools. In recent years, researchers have started to re-evaluate the collected virus isolates by HTS. The obtained sequences can challenge the taxonomic classification of theses isolates and may also provide a new foundation for the development of specific diagnostic tests.

In this Special Issue, original research papers, perspectives, hypotheses, opinions, methods, and reviews are greatly welcomed, including functional genomic, transcriptomic, proteomic, and behavioural studies that focus on novel plant viruses/viroids and their interactions with their hosts, vectors, and surrounding environments.

Dr. Heiko Ziebell
Dr. Adrian Fox
Dr. Yahya Z. A. Gaafar
Guest Editors

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• plant viruses and viroids
• high throughput sequencing
• bioinformatics
• diagnostics
• plant defence mechanisms
• virus taxonomy
• virus/viroid–plant–vector interactions
• symptomology
• functional genetics