Poinsettia is an ornamental species found as a shrub in residential and public gardens or commercialized in pots for indoor decoration. In order to detect phytoplasma in poinsettia exhibiting shoot proliferation, samples were collected from plants with and without symptoms grown in gardens, and commercial plants cultivated in pots showing symptoms. The PCR technique using primers R16mF2/mR1 and R16F2n/R2 was employed to detect phytoplasma by using DNA extracted from fresh leaves. The results revealed that phytoplasma was consistently detected from samples with symptoms, but no phytoplasma was found in any samples without symptoms. It was thus demonstrated that poinsettia proliferation was associated with the presence of phytoplasma. Molecular identification using group-specific primer pairs and RFLP analyses revealed that the phytoplasma was a member of group 16SrIII. Plants with proliferation have shown a compact top and are more attractive to consumers; hence the presence of phytoplasma is desirable for ornamental and commercial purposes.
Mollicutes; yellows; Euphorbia pulcherrima
