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Sugarcane white leaf phytoplasma in tissue culture: long-term maintenance, transmission, and oxytetracycline remission

  • Biotic and Abiotic Stress
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Abstract

Sugarcane white leaf (SCWL)-diseased sugarcane plants collected from Udornthani Province, in north-eastern Thailand, were the source for tissue culture experiments. Explants from axillary buds, meristem tips, and leaves grew optimally in Murashige-Skoog medium containing 0.5 mg/l α-naphthaleneacetic acid, 0.5 mg/l 6-benzylaminopurine, and 15% coconut water. Callus development and shoot/root proliferation were more rapid in cultures from diseased than from healthy plants. Disease symptoms continued for 6 years after culture initiation, and SCWL phytoplasma persisted, as confirmed by polymerase chain reaction using both 16S rDNA and 16S-23S rDNA primers. Phytoplasmas in the cultured plantlets were transmissible by grafting to sugarcane and periwinkle, and by feeding of the leafhopper vector Matsumuratettix hiroglyphicus to sugarcane. Although 50% of the plantlets were killed by oxytetracycline at 500 mg/ml, 70–100% of plantlets grown with 200–500 mg/ml oxytetracycline showed symptom remission through 5–8 subcultures. Typical phytoplasma-like bodies, visible by electron microscopy in sieve tubes of untreated diseased plantlets, were absent in antibiotic-treated plantlets. Thus, tissue culture provides a convenient and reliable in vivo system for investigation of SCWL phytoplasma.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by a grant from the Thailand Research Fund and Khon Kaen University, and by the Oklahoma Agricultural Experiment Station project # 2052.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Plant Pathology, Faculty of Agriculture, Khon Kaen University, Khon Kaen, 40002, Thailand

    Porntip Wongkaew

  2. Department of Entomology and Plant Pathology, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK, 74078, USA

    Jacqueline Fletcher

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  1. Porntip Wongkaew
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  2. Jacqueline Fletcher
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Correspondence to Porntip Wongkaew.

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Communicated by H. Judelson

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Wongkaew, P., Fletcher, J. Sugarcane white leaf phytoplasma in tissue culture: long-term maintenance, transmission, and oxytetracycline remission. Plant Cell Rep 23, 426–434 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00299-004-0847-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00299-004-0847-2

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