Journal of Plant Pathology Archive

Abstract:

In summer of 2015, asymptomatic samples of Solanum jasminoides (eight samples), Brugmansia sp. (four samples), Lycianthes rantonnetii (three samples) and Datura sp. (two samples) were collected in six different municipalities of Montenegro (Bar, Kotor, Pljevlja, Bijelo Polje, Herceg Novi and Ulcinj) and tested for Potato spindle tuber viroid (PSTVd). Total RNA was extracted from leaves using the RNeasy Plant Mini kit (Qiagen, Germany) according to the manufacturer's instructions and amplified by RT-PCR according to the EPPO protocol (OEPP/EPPO, 2004). Four samples (three samples of S. jasminoides and one of Brugmansia sp) out of five samples collected in the Kotor municipality were positive for PSTVd. Samples from other municipalities were negative for PSTVd. To confirm these results, leaves of the positive samples were analyzed with a second RT-PCR (Faggioli et al., 2013). The amplified products obtained with both the first and second RT-PCR diagnostic protocols were cloned and sequenced. All the PSTVd clones showed nucleotide sequences identical among themselves (GenBank accession numbers KU323790-KU323792 for isolates from S. jasminoides and KU323793 for an isolate of Brugmansia sp.) and to a Croatian isolate of S. jasminoides (GenBank accession number KF418767.1). To our knowledge, this is the first report of PSTVd in Montenegro.