Plants exhibit a wide variety of disease symptoms in response to pathogen attack. In general, most plant symptoms are recognized as harmful effects on host plants, and little is known about positive aspects of symptoms for infected plants. Herein, we report the beneficial role of purple top symptoms, which are characteristic of phytoplasma-infected plants. First, by using plant mutants defectiv...

Maize redness (MR), induced by stolbur phytoplasma ('Candidatus Phytoplasma solani', subgroup 16SrXII-A), is characterized by midrib, leaf, and stalk reddening and abnormal ear development. MR has been reported from Serbia, Romania, and Bulgaria for 50 years, and recent epiphytotics reduced yields by 40 to 90% in South Banat District, Serbia. Potential vectors including leafhoppers and planthop...

Phytoplasmas ('Candidatus Phytoplasma' spp.) are insect-vectored bacteria that infect a wide variety of plants, including many agriculturally important species. The infections can cause devastating yield losses by inducing morphological changes that dramatically alter inflorescence development. Detection of phytoplasma infection typically utilizes sequences located within the 16S-23S rRNA-encod...

Mobile genetic elements have impacted biological evolution across all studied organisms, but evidence for a role in evolutionary emergence of an entire phylogenetic clade has not been forthcoming. We suggest that mobile element predation played a formative role in emergence of the phytoplasma clade. Phytoplasmas are cell wall-less bacteria that cause numerous diseases in plants. Phylogenetic an...

Flavescence dorée (FD) is a quarantine disease of grapevine, involving interactions between the plants, leafhopper vectors, and FD phytoplasma. Characterizing the susceptibility of vine varieties could limit disease propagation. After extensive surveys in vineyards, we showed that Cabernet Sauvignon (CS) is highly susceptible, with a high proportion of symptomatic branches and phytoplasma titer...

Phytoplasmas are plant pathogenic bacteria that are transmitted by insects. We examined several molecular biological findings involved in both plant–phytoplasma interactions and insect–phytoplasma interactions. (i) The complete genomic sequence of the phytoplasma suggested that the genome encodes very few metabolic functions, implying that the consumption of metabolites by phytoplasmas in plant...

Phytoplasmas are plant pathogenic bacteria that have no cell wall and are responsible for major crop losses throughout the world. Phytoplasma-infected plants show a variety of symptoms and the mechanisms they use to physiologically alter the host plants are of considerable interest, but poorly understood. In this study we undertook a detailed analysis of Paulownia infected by Paulownia witches'...

Hibiscus rosa-sinensis is a valuable ornamental species widely planted in Brazil. Many plants are affected by witches' broom disease, which is characterized by excessive axillary branching, abnormally small leaves, and deformed flowers, symptoms that are characteristic of diseases attributed to phytoplasmas. A phytoplasma was detected in diseased Hibiscus by amplification of rRNA operon sequenc...

Witches' broom disease of acid lime greatly affects the production of Mexican lime in Iran. It is caused by a phytoplasma (Candidatus Phytoplasma aurantifolia). However, the molecular mechanisms that underlie phytoplasma pathogenicity and the mode of interactions with host plants are largely unknown. Here, high-throughput transcriptome sequencing was conducted to explore gene expression signatu...

The yellow dwarf disease associated with phytoplasmas is one of the most devastating diseases of mulberry and the pathogenesis involved in the disease is poorly understood. To analyze the molecular mechanisms mediating gene expression in mulberry-phytoplasma interaction, the comprehensive sRNA changes of mulberry leaf in response to phytoplasma-infection were examined. A total of 164 conserved ...