Occurrence of a 16SrII subgroup D phytoplasma strain associated with leaf roll of greenhouse tomato in Iran

During 2017–2018, Solanum lycopersicum var. fasa plants with leaf roll symptoms were observed in greenhouses of Faragheh (Abarkouh, Yazd Province). Total DNAs extracted from 28 symptomatic and four asymptomatic samples were subjected to nested PCR assay using P1/P7, R16mF2/R16mR2 and R16F2n/R16R2 primer pairs and expected PCR amplifications were detected in all symptomatic tomato plants but not in asymptomatic ones. R16F2n/R16R2 trimmed sequences (1247 bp) of representative samples from Faragheh were deposite in GenBank (MW195052). BLAST search and phylogenetic analysis showed that the tomato phytoplasma had 99% homology and clusters with phytoplasmas in group 16SrII. Real and virtual RFLP analysis of 16S rRNA gene showed that the tomato phytoplasma RFLP 16S rRNA gene pattern was identical to 16SrII-D phytoplasma subgroup. To our knowledge, this is the first report of a 16SrII-D phytoplasma strain associated with greenhouse tomato leaf roll in Iran. © 2022, Indian Phytopathological Society.