First report of 16SrII-D phytoplasmas in Verbesina encelioides showing phyllody in Oman

Verbesina encelioides, Asteraceae, in the sunflower family, is commonly known as golden crownbeard. It was found in Oman developing phyllody symptoms, a phytoplasma-associated disease. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was used to amplify the 16S rRNA, secA, imp and SAP11 genes of phytoplasmas using direct and nested techniques. The PCR amplifications from all infected plants was amplifying expected length fragments in both direct and the nested PCR from symptomatic plant samples. Sequence identity results on BLAST and phylogenetic analyses of these genes sequences confirm that the phytoplasma detected in V. encelioides is a member 16SrII-D subgroup and shares more than 99.5% of all four genes sequence identity to the other phytoplasmas enclosed in this ribosomal subgroup.