Abstract
Phytoplasmas infecting fruit trees are considered quarantine organisms in Europe and North America. Detection often is hampered by their extremely irregular distribution in host plants. A sensitive, specific and quick diagnostic test would be highly desirable for routine detection, mainly to avoid using infected planting material. PCR methods require tedious preparation of DNA; also, the available primers are highly specific and exhibit some homology to chloroplast and plastid DNA. To address these problems, we compared several DNA preparation protocols for purity of DNA, cost and time required. We also developed new primers using rDNA sequence information from an Austrian isolate of European Stone Fruit Yellows (ESFY). These primers operate at high annealing temperatures and, thus, increase the specificity and decrease the risk of false positives. The primers could reliably detect the European phytoplasmas (AP, ESFY and PD) within a collection of isolates maintained in micropropagated periwinkle. Thus, they are suitable as general primers for phytoplasma detection. The primers also can be used for strain identification by direct PCR followed by RFLP analysis as demonstrated with micropropagated fruit tree material. Finally, an IC-PCR method that uses the primers for AP detection was found very sensitive and suitable for large-scale testing of apple materialin vivo andin vitro.
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Abbreviations
- ACLSV:
-
apple chlorotic leafspot virus
- A-AY:
-
American aster yellows
- AP:
-
apple proliferation
- ASGV:
-
apple stem grooving virus
- ASHY:
-
ash yellows
- ASPV:
-
apple stem pitting virus
- AT:
-
apple proliferation strain
- BVK:
-
phytoplasma fromPsammotettix cephalotes
- CHRY:
-
chrysanthemum yellows
- DAS-ELISA:
-
double antibody sandwich-enzyme linked immunosorbent assay
- ESFY:
-
European stone fruit yellows
- EY-C:
-
elm yellows
- FBPSA:
-
faba bean phyllody
- GVX:
-
Green Valley X disease
- GSFY:
-
German stone fruit yellows
- IC-PCR:
-
immuno capture-polymerase chain reaction
- KVM:
-
clover phyllody
- LNS:
-
plum leptonecrosis
- LUM:
-
Lucerne virescence
- MOL:
-
Molière disease
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Heinrich, M., Botti, S., Caprara, L. et al. Improved detection methods for fruit tree phytoplasmas. Plant Mol Biol Rep 19, 169–179 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02772160
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02772160