‘Candidatus Phytoplasma’ species detection in coconuts in Cuba Paredes-Tomás Camilo1,*, Satta Eleonora2, Paltrinieri Samanta2, Salín Carlos Oropeza3, Myrie Wayne4, Bertaccini Assunta1, Luis-Pantoja Maritza1 1Research Institute of Tropical Fruit Crops, La Habana, Cuba 2Alma Mater Studiorum, University of Bologna, Department of Agricultural and Food Sciences, Bologna, Italy 3Centro De Investigación Científica de Yucatán A.C., Mexico 4Coconut Industry Board, Kingston, Jamaica *Corresponding author e-mail: Camilo Paredes-Tomás (fitopatologia1@iift.cu)
Online published on 25 July, 2019. Abstract Coconut lethal yellowing (LY) is the single most important disease presently affecting the coconut production worldwide. Symptomatic and asymptomatic coconut plants were sampled in some selected areas to verify the identity of phytoplasmas associated with LY in Cuba. Diverse phytoplasma ribosomal groups were detected in the samples from symptomatic palms such as 16SrXII, 16SrVII, and 16SrI. In several other palms 16SrIV-A subgroup phytoplasmas were identified, in the groEL gene the only positive plant from Pilón resulted diverse from the others and identical to the 16SrIV-A strains detected in Jamaica LY infected coconut palms. This is the first record of occurrence of 16SrI, -VII and-XII groups in coconut palms in Cuba. Top Keywords Phytoplasmas, coconut lethal yellowing, molecular detection, genetic diversity. Top |