Candidatus Phytoplasma aurantifolia’ (16SrII-C) associated with phyllody disease of snake gourd from India

Typical symptoms of little leaf such as yellowing, phyllody, virescence, and witches' broom were observed on snake gourd in the Jalna district of Maharashtra state, India. Total genomic DNA extracted from symptomatic plants was subjected to PCR assay using the 16S rRNA gene specific primer pair. Pairwise comparison of the 16S rRNA gene sequence (1.2 kb) of the Snake gourd phytoplasma isolate showed it shared 100% sequence identity with Crotalaria phyllody-[16SrII-C] phytoplasma (Candidatus Phytoplasma aurantifolia). Further virtual RFLP analysis of 16Sr RNA gene sequence of F2 region of the snake gourd phytoplasma isolate showed a similarity coefficient of 0.99 with the 16SrII-C subgroup. Here we have described Candidatus Phytoplasma aurantifolia (16SrII-C) infecting snake gourd in India.