Journal of Plant Pathology Archive

Abstract:

Dahlia (Dahlia sp.) is a host of dahlia latent viroid (DLVd), but no information is available on the occurrence of this viroid in Turkey. Thirty asymptomatic dahlia plants were randomly selected in gardens of the cities of Gaziantep and Adana (Turkey) for this study. Total RNA was extracted from approximately 200 mg of leaf tissue of the sampled plants with AxyPrep Multisource Total RNA Midiprep Kit (Axygen Biosciences, USA) and screened by RT-PCR with primers DLVd-P1 (5'-GGGGCTCCTCAGAGAGTCTC-3') and DLVd-P2 (5'- GGGGCAACTCCGAGAGTGCTG-3') (Verhoeven et al., 2013). Twelve plants proved to be infected with DLVd. The amplified DNA bands of the expected size (ca. 340 nucleotides) were purified and directly sequenced. The sequence of five DLVd genetic variants from Turkey showed 98 to 100% maximum nucleotide identity with a genetic variant from the Netherlands (GenBank accession No. JX263426). The occurrence of DLVd in dahlia was confirmed by viroid purification and sequential polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (Semancik et al., 1988). To our knowledge, this is the first report of DLVd on dahlia plants in Turkey.