Molecular evidence for the presence of huanglongbing in Pakistan

Shahid Nadeem Chohan; Raheel Qamar; Irfan Sadiq; Maleeha Azam; Paul Holford; Andrew Beattie

doi:10.1071/DN07019

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Molecular evidence for the presence of huanglongbing in Pakistan

Shahid Nadeem Chohan ^A ^B , Raheel Qamar ^A , Irfan Sadiq ^A , Maleeha Azam ^A , Paul Holford ^B ^C and Andrew Beattie ^B

+ Author Affiliations

- Author Affiliations

^A Department of Biosciences, COMSATS Institute of Information Technology, Islamabad, Pakistan.

^B Centre for Plant and Food Science, University of Western Sydney, Locked Bag 1797, Penrith South DC, NSW 1797, Australia.

^C Corresponding author. Email: p.holford@uws.edu.au

Australasian Plant Disease Notes 2(1) 37-38 https://doi.org/10.1071/DN07019
Submitted: 15 January 2007 Accepted: 19 March 2007 Published: 29 March 2007

Abstract

The presence of Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus in citrus orchards in the North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan has been confirmed. Samples of DNA extracted from leaves of putatively infected citrus plants and from the vector of the disease, Diaphorina citri, were subjected to analysis using PCR and produced DNA amplicons characteristic of this bacterium. To confirm the exact nature of the pathogen, amplicons were sequenced and the resulting data showed 100% identity with published sequences of the Ca. L. asiaticus rplKAJL-rpoBC operon.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan for providing funding for this research through a HEC Foreign Faculty Start-up research grant.

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