Draft Genome Sequence of "Candidatus Phytoplasma oryzae" Strain Mbita1, the Causative Agent of Napier Grass Stunt Disease in Kenya.

Anne Fischer,Lillian Wambua,Daniel Masiga,Joerg Jores,Ivette Santana-Cruz,Bernd Schneider,Cassandra Olds,Charles Midega,Zeyaur Khan,Matthew Dickinson,Praphat Kawicha

doi:10.1128/genomea.00297-16

Abstract

Phytoplasmas are bacterial plant pathogens with devastating impact on agricultural production worldwide. In eastern Africa, Napier grass stunt disease causes serious economic losses in the smallholder dairy industry. This draft genome sequence of “Candidatus Phytoplasma oryzae” strain Mbita1 provides insight into its genomic organization and the molecular basis of pathogenicity.

Highlights

Phytoplasmas are bacteria that parasitize the plant phloem tissue causing a wide range of symptoms, like yellowing, stunting, little leaves, witches’ brooms, virescence, and phyllody [1]
Current phytoplasma classification is based on restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) patterns of their 16SrDNA sequence [2]
Napier grass stunt disease (NSD) severely impairs the growth of Napier grass, with losses of up to 70% biomass in infected plants

Summary

Introduction

Phytoplasmas are bacteria that parasitize the plant phloem tissue causing a wide range of symptoms, like yellowing, stunting, little leaves, witches’ brooms, virescence, and phyllody [1]. Current phytoplasma classification is based on restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) patterns of their 16SrDNA sequence [2]. Because phytoplasmas are unculturable in axenic media, their molecular characterization has been hampered and only five phytoplasma genomes have been deposited in public databases to date [3,4,5,6,7]. In Kenya and Uganda, NSD is caused by a phytoplasma belonging to group 16SrXI (“Candidatus Phytoplasma oryzae” or rice yellow dwarf) [8, 9].

Results

Conclusion