Detection and identification of ‘Candidatus Phytoplasma australasia'in sunnhemp from Andhra Pradesh, India

Abstract

Sunn hemp is a tropical legume crop used as green manure, fiber and fodder crop. The little leaf and witches’ broom disease symptoms were observed on sunn hemp in citrus orchard at Citrus Research Station, Tirupati. The DNA was extracted from diseased and healthy leaves, and subjected to nested PCR with P1/P7 and R16F2n/R16R2 primers. The PCR amplfified 1,250 bp product was eluted, sequenced and submitted to NCBI GenBank. Sequence analysis of 16Sr RNA gene through phylogeny and virtual RFLP of sunn hemp strain allows its identification as ‘Candidatus Phytoplasma australasia’ (16SrII-D).