Within the scope of TÜBİTAK BİDEB 2209-A Research Projects Support Program, undergraduate student Melike Ayşe KARAÇAYLI and Prof. Dr. Çiğdem ULUBAŞ SERÇE from Plant Production and Technologies Department were selected to receive support with their projects titled with “Investigation of Viral Factors in Mulberry (Morus spp) Trees by High-Throughtput Sequencing Methods”.

The important use area of mulberry trees (Morus spp) in the world is using the leaf of the tree as feed in the production of silkworms, and their fruits are of value in human nutrition and health as fresh and dried fruits. Mulberry trees have been affected by diseases caused by many fungal, bacterial and viral pathogens. The identification of the pathogens causing viral symptoms in mulberry plants has been relatively gaining interest and etiological research has been limited. In recent years, many new viral factors have been identified in plants thanks to high-throughput sequencing technologies.

This project aims to perform RNA sequencing of a century-old mulberry tree located in Bor District, Niğde and mulberry samples to be collected from /around Niğde province using Illumina technology, to detect known and possible new viral factors using bioinformatic analysis of the obtained data.