Apple proliferation (AP), pear decline (PD) and European stone fruit yellows (ESFY) are among the most economically important plant diseases that are caused by phytoplasmas. Phylogenetic analyses revealed that the 16S rDNA sequences of strains of each of these pathogens were identical or nearly identical. Differences between the three phytoplasmas ranged from 1.0 to 1.5% of nucleotide positions...

Many insect-transmissible pathogens are transmitted by specific insect species and not by others, even if they are closely related. The molecular mechanisms underlying such strict pathogen-insect specificity are poorly understood. Candidatus Phytoplasma asteris, OY strain, line W (OY), is a phytopathogenic bacterium transmitted from plant to plant by sap-feeding insect vectors (leafhoppers). Ou...

in 2010- 2012 surveys, witches'- boom disease of tomato was observed in borazjan area (bushehr province, iran). agent of the disease was transmitted from tomato to tomato and eggplant by grafting and to madagascar periwinkle via dodder inoculation, inducing phytoplasma-type symptoms in inoculated plants. presence of phytoplasma in naturally affected tomatoes and all symptomatic graft and dodder...

A gene encoding the major antigenic protein of phytoplasma associated with sweet potato witches' broom (SPWB) was cloned and analysed by screening the genomic library of SPWB phytoplasma with monoclonal antibodies for SPWB phytoplasma. The entire predicted structural gene encoded an antigenic protein composed of 172 amino acids with a computed molecular mass of 19.15 kDa and a pl value of 9.78....

Phytoplasmas are a group of bacteria that are associated with hundreds of plant diseases. Due to their economical importance and the difficulties involved in the experimental study of these obligate pathogens, genome sequencing and comparative analysis have been utilized as powerful tools to understand phytoplasma biology. To date four complete phytoplasma genome sequences have been published. ...

A comprehensive metabolomic profiling of Catharanthus roseus L. G. Don infected by 10 types of phytoplasmas was carried out using one-dimensional and two-dimensional NMR spectroscopy followed by principal component analysis (PCA), an unsupervised clustering method requiring no knowledge of the data set and used to reduce the dimensionality of multivariate data while preserving most of the varia...

Coconut palms from the Grand-Lahou region of Côte d’Ivoire exhibiting lethal yellowing-like symptoms and infected by a phytoplasma were further tested for the characterization of the phytoplasma pathogen based on the 16S rRNA gene analysis. Nested PCR with phytoplasma universal and lethal yellowing-specific primers resulted in amplification of products of expected sizes from seven out of 17 sym...

Flavescence dorée (FD) is a threat for wine production in the vineyard landscape of Piemonte, Langhe-Roero and Monferrato, Italy. Spread of the disease is dependent on complex interactions between insect, plant and phytoplasma. In the Piemonte region, wine production is based on local cultivars. The role of six local grapevine varieties as a source of inoculum for the vector Scaphoideus titanus...

Several economically relevant phytoplasma-associated diseases are described together with an update of phytoplasma taxonomy and major biological and molecular features of phytoplasmas. Outlook about persepectives and future work to contain spread of these diseases are also reported.

tomato is an important vegetable crop in iran. recently symptoms associated with phytoplasma disease were observed in tomato cultivars in karaj vicinity. the phytoplasmas were detected and characterized using single-tube nested pcr and rflp. the universal primer pairs amplified the target dna with expected sizes from symptomatic samples in direct pcr and single-tube nested pcr. the patterns of ...