Abstract
Pepper witches’ broom (PWB) disease was observed in a field in Yangling, Shaanxi Province, China. The result of mechanical inoculation test for this disease was negative. Phytoplasma-like bodies were observed in ultrathin sections of petiole tissues of symptomatic samples. 16S rRNA gene and tuf gene of phytoplasma were amplified from the total DNA of symptomatic samples. Phylogeny analysis of the 16S rRNA gene and tuf gene suggested that the pepper witches’ broom associated phytoplasma belongs to the subgroup 16SrI-B, which was confirmed by the RFLP analysis of the 16S rRNA gene. The phytoplasma subgroup 16SrI-B was also detected in the vector Cicadella viridis trapped from the infected field. To our knowledge, this is the first report of 16SrI-B phytoplasma causing pepper witches’ broom in China.
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Acknowledgments
We thank Dr. Frank M You of Cereal Research Centre, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, for revisions and suggestions to the manuscript. This research was supported by the 111 project (Grant no. B07049) and the Ph.D. Program Foundation from the Ministry of Education of China (Grant no. 20100204110004), National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant no. 30970133) and Ph.D. Student Academic Newcomer Award of China Ministry of Education (Grant no. Z107021202).
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Zheng-Nan Li and Lei Zhang contributed equally to this paper.
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Li, ZN., Zhang, L., Song, JG. et al. Molecular detection and identification of phytoplasma associated with pepper witches’ broom in China. Phytoparasitica 41, 429–434 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12600-013-0304-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12600-013-0304-2