First report of a ‘Candidatus Phytoplasma asteris’ strain associated with trailing Lantana species from India Rao Govind Pratap1,*, Dubey Durgesh2,5, Prabha K.3, Reddy Madem Gurivi4 1Division of Plant Pathology, ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi-110012, India 2Institute of Agriculture and Natural Sciences, DDU Gorakhpur University, Gorakhpur-273009, Uttar Pradesh, India 3ICAR-Directorate of Floricultural Research, College of Agriculture Campus, Shivajinagar, Pune-411005, Maharashtra, India 4Sri Venkateswara Agricultural College, Acharya N.G. Ranga Agricultural University, Tirupati-517502, Andhra Pradesh, India 5Division of Plant Pathology, ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi-110012, India *Corresponding author e-mail: Govind Pratap Rao (gprao_gor@rediffmail.com)
Online Published on 11 January, 2024. Abstract Lantana montevidensis is widely grown as an ornamental plant species for landscaping across India. Along with this, many other colored dwarf lantana are widely grown in landscaping and mostly are hybrids and variations of L. camara and L. montevidensis. In 2023, symptoms of little leaf, leaf yellowing and witches’ broom were observed in ornamental lantana based landscapes in and around Pune, India. Phytoplasma presence was confirmed in symptomatic lantana plants by employing phytoplasma ribosomal gene (P1/P7 and R16F2/r16R2) and secA gene (secA for-1/secA for-3) specific primer pairs in PCR assays. Pair wise sequence identity and phylogeny of 16S rRNA and secA gene sequences of lantana phytoplasma strains confirmed the presence of a ‘Candidatus Phytoplasma asteris’ strain (16SrI group). Virtual RFLP analysis of about 1.25 kb product of 16S rRNA gene sequences using iPhyClassifier tool further classified the ornamental lantana phytoplasma into the 16SrI-B subgroup. This is the first report on identification of a phytoplasma in diseased trailing ornamental lantana. Top Keywords Phytoplasma, Lantana montevidensis, L. camara, 16S rRNA gene, Little leaf and yellowing. Top |