New plant hosts for group 16SrII, ‘Candidatus Phytoplasma aurantifolia’, in India
Abstract
Lettuce (Lactuca sativa), carrot (Daucus carota) and French bean (Phaseolus vulgaris) are important staple food crops in India. Symptoms of leaf yellowing, chlorosis, and little leaf were recently observed in these species in Uttarakhand, Pantnagar, Uttar Pradesh, India. Plants of Amaranthus sp. growing in adjacent hedges also exhibited leaf yellowing symptoms. Three leaf samples of each plant species with symptoms were collected, including healthy looking plants. Total DNA was extracted and indexed in a nested PCR assay with universal primers R16mF2/R1 and fU5/rU3 that target the phytoplasma 16S rRNA. PCR amplicons (880 bp) were produced in all samples with, but not without symptoms. RFLP profiles were all similar to those of group 16SrII, 'Candidatus Phytoplasma aurantifolia'. Sequences of phytoplasmas (GenBank) identified in lettuce (EU362630), carrot (EU362628), French bean (EU362629) and Amaranthus sp. (EU362627) shared 99% identity to each other, and to a member of group 16SrII, 'Candidatus Phytoplasma aurantifolia' (EU099570). This is the first record of a 16SrII phytoplasma isolate in lettuce, carrot, French bean, and Amaranthus sp. in India.
Citation
Arocha, Y.; Singh, A.; Pandey, M.; Tripathi, A.N.; Chandra, B.; Shukla, S.K.; Singh, Y.; Kumar, A.; Srivastava, R.K.; Zaidi, N.W.; Arif, M.; Narwal, S.; Tewari, A.K.; Gupta, M.K.; Nath, P.D.; Rabindran, R.; Khirbat, S.K.; Byadgi, A.S.; Singh, G.; Boa, E. New plant hosts for group 16SrII, ‘Candidatus Phytoplasma aurantifolia’, in India. Plant Pathology (2008) 58 (2) 391-391. [DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-3059.2008.01969.x]