Abstract
Symptoms of decline, leaf yellowing and reddening, little leaf and malformation were observed in apricot, guava, lychee, mango, pomegranate and grapevine in fruit orchards belonging to three states of India namely Delhi, Maharashtra and Jammu & Kashmir during 2016–2017. Phytoplasmas belonging to three different groups were detected in all the symptomatic fruit tree samples in polymerase chain reaction with phytoplasma specific primer pairs amplifying 16S rRNA and secA genes. Pair wise sequence comparison and phylogenetic analysis confirmed the presence of phytoplasmas. A ‘Candidatus Phytoplasma asteris’ - related strain was detected in apricot showing decline symptoms in Siot (Jammu & Kashmir). ‘Ca. P. australasia’ - related strain was identified in guava, lychee, mango and pomegranate in Rajbag, Sunjwan (Jammu & Kashmir), Pusa (Delhi) and Baramati (Maharashtra), respectively, exhibiting little leaf, leaf yellows and malformation symptoms. Furthermore, a rice yellow dwarf group (16SrXI-B) - related strain was detected in pomegranate and grapevine that showed leaf yellowing and reddening at Pusa (Delhi) and Baramati (Maharashtra), respectively. Subgroup analysis using virtual RFLP of 16S rDNA sequences allowed enclosing these phytoplasma strains into 16SrI-B, 16SrII-D and 16SrXI-B subgroups. In the study, identification of phytoplasma subgroups, 16SrI-B in apricot, 16SrII-D in guava, lychee, mango and pomegranate (Pusa) and 16SrXI-B in pomegranate (Baramati) and grapevine, are the first records globally.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
References
Ahrens, U., & Seemüller, E. (1992). Detection of DNA of plant pathogenic mycoplasma like organisms by a polymerase chain reaction that amplifies a sequence of the 16S rRNA gene. Phytopathology, 82, 828–832.
Angelini, E., Constable, F., Duduk, B., Fiore, N., Quaglino, F., and Bertaccini, A. (2018). Grapevine Phytoplasmas. In Phytoplasmas: Plant pathogenic bacteria-I, 123–151. Springer, Singapore.
Anonymous. (2019). National Horticulture Board. Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Government of India.
Bertaccini, A., Duduk, B., Paltrinieri, S., & Contaldo, N. (2014). Phytoplasmas and phytoplasma diseases: A severe threat to agriculture. American Journal of Plant Sciences, 5, 1763–1788.
Deng, S., & Hiruki, C. (1991). Amplification of 16S rRNA genes from culturable and nonculturable mollicutes. Journal of Microbiological Methods, 14, 53–61.
El-Banna, O. H. M., & El-Deeb, S. H. (2007). Phytoplasma associated with mango malformation disease in Egypt. Journal of Phytopathology, 35, 141–153.
Fahmeed, F., Arocha, R. Y., Acosta-Pérez, K., Boa, E., & Lucas, J. (2009). First report of ‘Candidatus Phytoplasma asteris’ (group 16SrI) infecting fruits and vegetables in Islamabad, Pakistan. Journal of Phytopathology, 157, 639–641.
FAOSTAT (2018). Agriculture data, agricultural statistics databases. Http,//faostat.fao.org, Organization of the United Nations, Rome, Italy.
Fiore, N., Bertaccini, A., Bianco, P. A., Cieślińska, M., Ferretti, L., Hoat, T. X., and Quaglino, F. (2018). Fruit crop Phytoplasmas. In Phytoplasmas: Plant pathogenic bacteria-I, 153–190. Springer, Singapore.
Gazel, M., Çağlayan, K., Başpınar, H., Mejia, J. F., Paltrinieri, S., Bertaccini, A., & Contaldo, N. (2016). Detection and identification of phytoplasmas in pomegranate trees with yellows symptoms. Journal of Phytopathology, 164, 136–140.
Hall, T. A. (1999). BioEdit: A user-friendly biological sequence alignment editor and analysis program for windows 95/98/NT. Nucleic Acids Symposium Series, 41, 95–98.
Hodgetts, J., Boonham, N., Mumford, R., Harrison, N., & Dickinson, M. (2008). Phytoplasma phylogenetics based on analysis of secA and 23S rRNA gene sequences for improved resolution of candidate species of ‘Candidatus Phytoplasma’. International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology, 58, 1826–1837.
Karimi, M. R., Paltrinieri, S., Contaldo, N., Kamali, H., Sajadinejad, M., Ajami, M. R., & Bertaccini, A. (2015). Phytoplasma detection and identification in declining pomegranate in Iran. Phytopathogenic Mollicutes, 5, 95–99.
Kumar, M., and Rao, G. P. (2017). Molecular characterization, vector identification and sources of phytoplasmas associated with brinjal little leaf disease in India. 3 Biotech, 7, 7.
Kumar, S., Stecher, G., & Tamura, K. (2016). MEGA7: Molecular evolutionary genetics analysis version 7.0 for bigger datasets. Molecular Biology and Evolution, 33, 1870–1874.
Lee, I. M., Bertaccini, A., Vibio, M., & Gundersen, D. E. (1995). Detection of multiple phytoplasmas in perennial fruit trees with decline symptoms in Italy. Phytopathology, 85, 728–735.
Mitra, S., Debnath, P., Bahadur, A., & Rao, G. P. (2019a). First report of ‘Candidatus Phytoplasma asteris’ (16SrI-B subgroup) strain infecting pineapple shoot proliferation & witches’ broom disease in Tripura, India. Plant Disease, 103, 2941.
Mitra, S., Debnath, P., Bahadur, A., Das, S. C., Kirdat, K., Yadav, A., & Rao, G. P. (2019b). First report of an association of ‘Candidatus Phytoplasma australasia’with cashew nut inflorescence decline in Tripura, a north-eastern state of India. Plant Disease. https://doi.org/10.1094/PDIS-08-19-1715-PDN.
Rao, G. P., Madhupriya, T. V., Manimekalai, R., Tiwari, A. K., & Yadav, A. (2017a). A century progress of research on phytoplasma diseases in India. Phytopathogenic Mollicutes, 7, 1–38.
Rao, G. P., Tiwari, A. K., & Dubey, D. (2017b). Identification and characterization of two phytoplasma subgroups (16SrXI-D and 16SrXIV-A) associated with lychee (Lychee chinensis Sonn) in India. Journal of Plant Diseases and Protection, 124, 235–239.
Salehi, M., Hosseini, S. A. E., Rasoulpour, R., Salehi, E., & Bertaccini, A. (2016). Identification of a phytoplasma associated with pomegranate little leaf disease in Iran. Crop Protection, 87, 50–54.
Salehi, M., Salehi, E., Siampour, M., Quaglino, F., & Bianco, P. A. (2018). Apricot yellows associated with ‘Candidatus Phytoplasma phoenicium’ in Iran. Phytopathologia Mediterranea, 57, 269–283.
Schneider, B., Seemüller, E., Smart, C. D., & Kirkpatrick, B. C. (1995). Phylogenetic classification of plant pathogenic mycoplasma-like organisms or phytoplasma. Molecular and Diagnostic Procedures in Mycoplasmology, 1, 369–380.
Uyemoto, J. K., and Kirkpatrick, B. C. (2011). X-disease phytoplasma in: Virus and virus like diseases of pome and stone fruits. Eds Hadidi a, Barba M, Candresse T, Jelkmann W, APS, St. Paul, Minnesota, USA, 243–245.
Zhao, Y., Wei, W., Lee, I. M., Shao, J., Suo, X., & Davis, R. E. (2009). Construction of an interactive online phytoplasma classification tool, iPhyClassifier and its application in analysis of the peach X-disease phytoplasma group (16SrIII). International Journal Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology, 59, 2582–2593.
Acknowledgements
The authors are thankful to the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, New Delhi, India, for providing financial assistance under the ICAR-Extramural Research Project. Also, wish to express sincere thanks to the Head, Division of Plant Pathology, and the Director, Indian Agricultural Research Institute, for providing laboratory facilities.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Human studies and participants
there were no involvement of human participants and/or animals in the present study.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Rao, G.P., Rao, A., Kumar, M. et al. Identification of phytoplasma in six fruit crops in India. Eur J Plant Pathol 156, 1197–1206 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10658-020-01949-3
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10658-020-01949-3