‘Candidatus Phytoplasma trifolii’ (16SrVI) IN MIRASOL CHILI PEPPER (Capsicum annuun L.) CULTIVATED IN ZACATECAS, MÉXICO

Abstract

Dry chili pepper Mirasol type plants (Capsicum annuum L.) exhibiting foliar yellowing, big bud, and rolled-up margins symptoms were collected from commercial pepper fields in Calera de Victor Rosales country, Zacatecas, México. They were examined to determine the presence of phytoplasms by nested polymerase chain reaction (PCR) using the universal primer pair P1/Tint, followed by the primer pair R16F2n/R16R2 and restriction fragment length polymorfism (RFLP) analysis of 16S rDNA sequences. The presence of two different RFPL patterns in clones from different samples indicated the presence of two phytoplasmas isolates. Each was classified as strains of ‘Candidatus Phytoplasma trifolii’, that belong to group 16SrVI. The first ChZac4F3 phytoplasma sequence belongs to subgroup 16SrVI-A, while the second ChZac5F1 phytoplasma sequence was classified into a new subgroup (16SrVI-J). ChZac4F3 and ChZac5F1 phytoplasma sequences showed a similarity of 99.2 and 99.1 %, respectively, with the reference strain of ‘Candidatus Phytoplasma trifolii’ (AY390261), when both were analyzed via the iPhyClassifier program. This is the first report of two new strains of ‘Candidatus Phytoplasma trifolii’ associated to foliar yellowing, big bud and rolled-up margins symptoms in Mirasol chili pepper in Zacatecas, México.