Rapid and sensitive diagnoses of dry root rot pathogen of chickpea (Rhizoctonia bataticola (Taub.) Butler) using loop-mediated isothermal amplification assay

Dry root rot (DRR) caused by the fungus Rhizoctonia bataticola (Taub.) Butler, is an emerging disease in chickpea. The disease is often mistaken with other root rots like Fusarium wilt, collar rot and black root rot in chickpea. Therefore, its timely and specific detection is important. Current detection protocols are either based on mycological methods or on protocols involving DNA amplification by polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Here we report the rapid and specific detection of R. bataticola using loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) assay targeting fungal specific 5.8S rDNA sequence for visual detection of R. bataticola. The reaction was optimized at 63 °C for 75 min using minimum 10 fg of DNA. After adding SYBR Green I in LAMP products, the amplification was found to be highly specific in all the 94 isolates of R. bataticola collected from diverse geographical regions as well as DRR infected plants and sick soil. No reaction was found in other pathogenic fungi infecting chickpea (Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. ciceris, Rhizoctonia solani, Sclerotium rolfsii and Fusarium solani) and pigeonpea (Fusarium udum and Phytophthora cajani). The standardised LAMP assay with its simplicity, rapidity and specificity is very useful for the visual detection of this emerging disease in chickpea.