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‘Candidatus Phytoplasma omanense’, associated with witches'-broom of Cassia italica (Mill.) Spreng. in Oman

¹ Department of Crop Sciences, College of Agricultural & Marine Sciences, Sultan Qaboos University, PO Box 34, Al-Khod 123, Oman
² Department of Agroenvironmental Sciences (DiSTA), Plant Pathology, Alma Mater Studiorum University of Bologna, I-40127 Bologna, Italy

Correspondence
Akhtar Jamal Khan
ajkhan{at}squ.edu.om

Samples from plants of Cassia italica exhibiting typical witches'-broom symptoms (Cassia witches'-broom; CWB) were examined for the presence of plant pathogenic phytoplasmas by PCR amplification using universal phytoplasma primers. All affected plants yielded positive results. RFLP analyses of rRNA gene products indicated that the phytoplasmas detected were different from those described previously. Phylogenetic analysis of 16S rRNA gene sequences confirmed that CWB represents a distinct lineage and shares a common ancestor with ‘Candidatus Phytoplasma phoenicium’. Molecular comparison revealed that the 16S rRNA gene sequences of the four CWB strains (IM-1, IM-2, IM-3 and IM-4) identified in symptomatic C. italica samples were nearly identical (99.6–100 % similarity). The closest relatives were members of the pigeon pea witches'-broom phytoplasma ribosomal group (16SrIX; 95–97 % sequence similarity). On the basis of unique 16S rRNA gene sequences and biological properties, the phytoplasma associated with witches'-broom of C. italica in Oman represents a coherent but discrete novel phytoplasma, ‘Candidatus Phytoplasma omanense’, with GenBank/DDBJ/EMBL accession number EF666051 representing the reference strain.

The GenBank/EMBL/DDBJ accession numbers for the sequences of the 16S rRNA gene and the 16S–23S rRNA gene spacer region of ‘Candidatus Phytoplasma omanense’ strains IM-1, IM-2, IM-3 and IM-4 are EF666051–EF666054, respectively.

Details of reference phytoplasmas used in RFLP analysis are available as supplementary material with the online version of this paper.