APS Abstract of Presentation

Identification of phytoplasmas affecting greenhouse tomatoes in North America
S. Y. ELATEEK (1), M. L. Lewis Ivey (1), S. A. Miller (1)
(1) Department of Plant Pathology, Ohio State University, OARDC, 1680 Madison Ave., Wooster, OH, USA
Phytopathology 98:S50

Greenhouse tomato Solanum lycopersicum production has grown markedly in North America in the last 20 years, now constituting 37% of fresh market production. Several diseases have caused significant economic losses in greenhouse tomatoes, including bacterial canker and pepino mosaic virus. Recently, symptoms typical of a phytoplasma disease were observed in production greenhouses in Arizona, Texas and Mexico. Infected plants showed growth distortion, proliferation of lateral shoots, greening of flower petals, and swollen green buds that failed to set fruit. The presence of phytoplasmas in diseased tomato plants was detected using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assays. Total genomic DNA from tomato samples from each location was amplified using nested PCR with the aster yellows-specific primers P1/P7 followed by F2n/R2. A 1.2 Kb fragment from all the samples was produced suggesting that the phytoplasma in each location is genetically related to the 16SrI (aster yellows) group. For each sample and location the 1.2 Kb PCR products was digested with five endonuclease enzymes AluI, PstI, HhaI, RsaI and HindIII and analyzed using restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP). The RFLP fingerprints from each tomato sample and location were identical to that of reference strain AY-WB, a member of the 16Sr1-B phytoplasma subgroup.

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