First report of 'candidatus Phytoplasma asteris' from Gerbera jamesonii in Apulia, Southern Italy

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Abstract

Gerbera jamesonii, an economically crop in the Italian cutflower market is reported to be affected by phytoplasmas oftwo 16S ribosomal groups from different parts of the world:16SrII from Australia (Siddique, 2005), and 16SrI from Italy(Bertaccini and Bellardi, 1998). Gerbera plants with virescence,phyllody and abnormal flower colour, indicative ofphytoplasmal infection, were observed in Apulia (southernItaly) in January 2010. Disease incidence was near 100% incv. Maxima while no apparent symptom were seen in cv.Fuego. For phytoplasma detection, total DNA was extractedfrom the leaves of three symptomatic and one symptomlessplant of each cultivar and used in nested PCR with primersP1/P7 (Schneider et al., 1995) and R16F2/R2 (Lee et al.,1993). DNA fragments of 1.2 kb, corresponding to 16SrDNA, were amplified only from DNA of the three symptomaticsamples. When digested with MseI, amplicons showedidentical RFLP patterns, which were indistinguishable fromthose produced by the European aster yellows strain of the"Candidatus Phytoplasma asteris". The 1,803 bp ampliconfrom P1/P7 PCR amplification was cloned into pGEM vector,and plasmid DNAs from two transformed clones weresequenced (BioFab Research, Italy). Both clones showed thesame sequence (GenBank accession No. JF795864) andClustalW2 alignment confirmed that 16S rDNA of gerberaphytoplasma shared 99.9% identity with Oenothera phytoplasma86-7 [GenBank accession No. M30790; Lim andSears (1989)], and 99.0% identity to several "Ca. P. asteris"isolates of different ribosomal subgroups (A, B, D, E, F, K,and P. GenBank accession Nos. HQ589187, EF634457,AY265206, AY265213, AY265211, U96616, AF503568, respectively)."Ca. P. asteris" is widely spread in Italian cutflower crops but this is its first report from gerbera in Apulia.

Autore Pugliese

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  • Spanò R.; Marzachí C.; Mascia T.; Bubici G.; Gallitelli D.

Titolo volume/Rivista

Journal of plant pathology

Anno di pubblicazione

2011

ISSN

1125-4653

ISBN

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