Biological and Molecular Characterization of Periwinkle Phyllody in Darab & Estahban

Subject Areas : Plant Pathology

Golnoosh Shaygan ¹ , محمد صالحی ابرقوئی ² , Sassan Ghasemi ³

1 - Islamic Azad University, Shiraz, Iran
2 - استاد یار پژوهش- مرکز تحقیقات کشاورزی فارس-زرقان
3 - Shiraz Islamic Azad University, Shiraz, Iran

Received: 2024-02-23 Accepted : 2025-11-08 Published : 2025-11-17

Keywords: Periwinkle, Phyllody, virescence, yellowing, phytoplasma, Nested PCR, RFLP, MLST,

Abstract :

During a survey in Darab and Estahban (Fars Province), phyllody symptoms were observed on periwinkle (Catharanthus roseus). Graft and dodder (Cuscuta sp.) transmission, followed by molecular assays using direct PCR (P1/P7) and nested PCR (R16F2n/R16R2), confirmed the phytoplasmal nature of the disease. Sequencing of the amplified 16S rRNA fragment (~1200 bp) revealed that the isolates belong to the 16SrIX group and are closely related to the 16SrIX-C subgroup. Phylogenetic analysis supported this classification. It is suggested that additional molecular markers such as secY, tuf, and imp, and a multilocus sequence typing (MLST) approach be used to improve taxonomic resolution. The findings indicate that infected periwinkle plants may serve as a potential reservoir for phytoplasma dissemination in the region.