“Flavescence dorée” phytoplasma has multiple ftsH genes showing hostdependent expression in both natural and experimental pathosystems

“Flavescence dorée” (FD) is an European severe epidemic disease of grapevine associated with the presence of a phytoplasma. Differences in virulence among strains of ‘Candidatus Phytoplasma mali’ have recently been associated to variations in FtsH/HflB and membrane AAA+ ATPases. The present study aims to predict and characterize the ftsH gene repertoire of FD phytoplasma, the orientation of these proteins in the phytoplasma membrane and to measure their expression profile.