The literature describes phytoplasma vectors belonging to the families Cicadellidae, Cixiidae, Psyllidae, Delphacidae and Derbidae ( Camarena Gutiérrez and De La Torre Almaraz, 2008).Ĭonsidering that calafate is an important culinary species, used in the production of jams and juices in the Patagonia, and that the phytoplasmas can cause sterility of flowers and therefore decrease fruit production, the objective of this research was to identify phytoplasma associated to the symptomatology of witch’s broom observed in wild plants from Magallanes region, Chile.Įxtraction of nucleic acids and PCR amplificationįrom each sample, an enriched phytoplasma DNA extraction was taken, following the protocol described by Ahrens and Seemüller (1992). This means that once acquired by an insect, they constantly multiply and maintain within the vector, making the insect vector potentially infective for the rest of its life ( Arismendi et al., 2010b). For survival and permanence in a cultivar, phytoplasmas require insect vectors through which they disseminate and propagate persistently. These phytoparasites cause diseases associated to symptoms that suggest an imbalance in the processes of accumulation of reserve substances, hormonal balance and photosynthesis and causes symptoms such as yellowing, witch’s broom, virescence, phyllody, premature reddening of the leaves, dwarfism and proliferation of adventitious buds, sterility of flowers, among others, which can cause the death of the host.
The phytoplasmas inhabit the sieve tubes of the plant tissue, and move to other plant organs through pores in these cells. These symptoms are commonly associated to the presence of phytoplasmas that are prokaryotes from the Mollicutes class ( Camarena Gutiérrez and De La Torre Almaraz, 2008 Bertaccini et al., 2014). In the last years, calafate plants in these regions have shown symptoms of witch’s broom, including proliferation of shoots with short internodes. The production of its fruit as a wild crop is concentrated in small gardens in the Region Aysén del General Carlos Ibáñez del Campo and Region Magallanes y la Antártica Chilena for use in jams and juices ( Mariangel et al., 2013). The calafate fruits are dark purple, black, or bluish berries and they have an elevated antioxidant capacity, given its high content of polyphenols and anthocyanins ( Ruiz et al., 2010). (“calafate”) belongs to the family Berberidaceae, is a shrub native to the Chilean and Argentinean Patagonia ( Varas et al., 2013).
Key words: Calafate phytoplasmas witch’s broomīerberis microphylla G. In conclusion, the symptoms of witch’s broom present in the analyzed calafate plants from Magallanes region signal the presence of the phytoplasma “ Candidatus Phytoplasma hispanicum” pertaining to the group 16SrXIII-F Restriction analysis indicated that the amplified DNA fragment corresponded to a phytoplasma from the 16SrXIII-f group. The nucleotide sequence obtained from the amplified DNA fragment had similarity to 99% of other phytoplasmas present in the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) database, according to a basic local alignment search tool (BLAST) analysis. Results from nested-PCR showed an expected band of 1.2 kb only in the samples with symptoms. To identify the phytopathogen, nested polymerase chain reaction (nested-PCR) was used with three pairs of primers (P1/P7, R16mF2/mR1, R16F2n/R2) sequencing of the fragments obtained from PCR and an in silico restriction analysis was carried out on the obtained genomic sequences. To determine the presence of phytoplasmas in calafate plants affected by these symptoms, symptomatic and asymptomatic samples were analyzed. Recently, wild growth of calafate present in Region of Magallanes y la Antártica Chilena has been affected by symptoms of witch’s broom, which is associated to infections caused by phytoplasmas. The calafate fruit have important commercial projection, given that contains antioxidant characteristics with high levels of phenolic compounds and anthocyanins.
(“calafate”) is a native berry grown in the Patagonian area of Chile and Argentina.
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