‘Candidatus Phytoplasma prunorum’ is causing ever increasing economic losses through the decline of apricot trees in European countries, e.g., Hungary. In this study, pathogen was identified from plant tissues and insects by nested-PCR. The insect species were via morphology molecular methods. incidence 29.6% randomly selected trees. Most infected with symptoms died within a year. These results...

Phytoplasmas are insect-transmitted bacterial phytopathogens that secrete virulence effectors and induce changes in the architecture and defense response of their plant hosts. We previously demonstrated that the small (± 10 kDa) virulence effector SAP11 of Aster Yellows phytoplasma strain Witches' Broom (AY-WB) binds and destabilizes Arabidopsis CIN (CINCINNATA) TCP (TEOSINTE-BRANCHED, CYCLOIDE...

Pathogens that rely upon multiple hosts to complete their life cycles often modify behavior and development of these hosts to coerce them into improving pathogen fitness. However, few studies describe mechanisms underlying host coercion. In this study, we elucidate the mechanism by which an insect-transmitted pathogen of plants alters floral development to convert flowers into vegetative tissue...

Phytoplasma phylogenetics has focused primarily on sequences of the non-coding 16S rRNA gene and the 16S-23S rRNA intergenic spacer region (16-23S ISR), and primers that enable amplification of these regions from all phytoplasmas by PCR are well established. In this study, primers based on the secA gene have been developed into a semi-nested PCR assay that results in a sequence of the expected ...

Phytoplasmas are insect-transmitted bacterial plant pathogens that cause considerable damage to a diverse range of agricultural crops globally. Symptoms induced in infected plants suggest that these phytopathogens may modulate developmental processes within the plant host. We report herein that Aster Yellows phytoplasma strain Witches' Broom (AY-WB) readily infects the model plant Arabidopsis (...

Phytoplasmas are bacterial phytopathogens that release virulence effectors into sieve cells and act systemically to affect the physiological and morphological state of host plants to promote successful pathogenesis. We show here that transgenic Nicotiana benthamiana lines expressing the secreted effector SAP11 from Candidatus Phytoplasma mali exhibit an altered aroma phenotype. This phenomenon ...

Phytoplasmas are bacterial plant pathogens that have devastating effects on the yields of crops and plants worldwide. They are intracellular parasites of both plants and insects, and are spread among plants by insects. How phytoplasmas can adapt to two diverse environments is of considerable interest; however, the mechanisms enabling the "host switching" between plant and insect hosts are poorl...

Phytoplasmas are bacterial plant pathogens with devastating impact on agricultural production worldwide. In eastern Africa, Napier grass stunt disease causes serious economic losses in the smallholder dairy industry. This draft genome sequence of " ITALIC! CandidatusPhytoplasma oryzae" strain Mbita1 provides insight into its genomic organization and the molecular basis of pathogenicity.

Phytoplasma infections are able to limit the lettuce growth around world. The alterations of biochemical contents in host physiology following phytoplasma infection remain be elucidated. In this study, changes total protein and chlorophyll content, proline, malondialdehyde (MDA) accumulation, peroxidase (POD) catalase (CAT) enzyme levels were investigated leaves plant after Candidatus asteris i...

Systemic infections with phytoplasmas and viruses threaten the production of healthy plant material under fruit species certification system. We tested possibility sanitation using in vitro culture cryotherapy. The starting cultivars Golden Delicious (clones A B), Virginia Crab, Panenské zlepšené was taken from vivo plants that positive for apple proliferation phytoplasma. Táborita cultivar obt...