Hatay İli Bazı Kabak (Cucurbitaceae) ve Tarlasarmaşığı'nda (Convolvuluceae) Fitoplazmaların Belirlenmesi ve Karakterizasyonu

Abstract

Aims: During a disease survey conducted in 2019, typical symptoms including yellowing of the leaves, stunting, shortening of internodes, proliferation of auxiliary shoots (witches'-broom), the bunchy appearance of growth at the ends of stems (rosetting), virescence of flowers or sterility, phyllody, small and deformed leaves and fasciation were observed on suspected cucurbit plants growing in Hatay province. Therefore, this study was carried out to determine the phytoplasma infection(s) on cucurbit crops and bindweed in Hatay province of Turkey.Methods and Results: In total; 4 pumpkins (winter squash: Cucurbita moschata Duchesne), 12 summer squash (Cucurbita pepo L.) and 2 bindweed (Convolvulus arvensis L.) samples were collected from suspected plants in cucurbit fields in Hatay province. Some of the plants (2 pumpkins, 10 summer squash and 2 bindweeds) exhibited symptoms related to phytoplasmas. Total nucleic acid was extracted by CTAB method. PCR amplification of 16S rDNA with phytoplasma specific primer pairs; F1/R0 followed by R16F2n/R2 confirmed the phytoplasma presence. Expected size amplicons of ~1.2 kb were obtained from infected samples from symptomatic cucurbits (12/12) and bindweed (1/2), but not from asymptomatic cucurbit plants (0/4). The sequences of the 4 symptomatic samples were deposited in NCBI GenBank (MT163353, MT163393, MT163396, and MT163469).Conclusions: After sequencing and phylogenetic analyses it was revealed that the squash isolates had 99% sequence identity with “Candidatus phytoplasma trifolii” (16SrVI) and the bindweed isolate had 99% sequence identity with “Candidatus phytoplasma solani” (16SrXII).Significance and Impact of the Study: There is a lack of knowledge on the status of phytoplasma infections and natural hosts in cucurbits in Turkey. According to our knowledge, this is the first report of a member of 16SrVI group, Candidatus phytoplasma trifolii associated with phytoplasma infection in winter squash-pumpkin (C. moschata) and summer squash (C. pepo) in Turkey.