1ICAR-Indian Institute of Horticultural Research, Hessaraghatta Lake PO, Bangalore-560089, Karnataka, India
2Central Horticultural Experiment Station (CHES), ICAR-IIHR, Chettalli-571248, Madikeri, Karnataka, India
3Department of Plant Pathology, College of Agriculture, University of Agricultural Sciences, GKVK, Bangalore-560065, Karnataka, India
4Department of Forest Biology and Tree Improvement, College of Forestry, UAS-Dharwad, Sirsi-581401, Karnataka, India
5Division of Plant Pathology, ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi-110012, India
*Corresponding author e-mail: Venkataravanappa Venkataravanappa (venkatrajani@gmail.com)
Online published on 21 July, 2020.
Bottle gourd is an important cucurbitaceous vegetable crop and plants showing phyllody symptoms were observed in Bangaluru rural area of Karnataka state, India. To verify the presence of phytoplasmas total genomic DNA was extracted from symptomatic plants using a CTAB-based method and subjected to PCR assay using 16S rRNA gene specific primer pair P1/P7 followed by R16F2n/R2 nested primer pairs. The amplicons of about 1.2 kb were observed in all the symptomatic samples in nested PCR assays. The comparison of 16S rRNA gene sequence through pair wise sequence analysis and phylogeny analysis confirmed that the detected phytoplasma was closely related to those enclosed in the aster yellows group. The virtual RFLP analysis of the 16Sr DNA sequence showed restriction profiles very close to those of the 16SrI-S subgroup strain except for the MseI restriction profile, which suggested that this could be a new strain in the 16SrI group.
Lagenaria siceraria, phytoplasma, nested PCR, virtual RFLP, 16SrI group
