Tomato plants displaying severe fruit deformation, flower sterility, aerial rooting, purplish leaves and leaf rolling wereobserved in tomato fields at Van province (Turkey). Samples were collected, and total DNA was extracted from symptomaticand asymptomatic plants. Nested polymerase chain reaction (nested-PCR) assays were performed to amplify 16S rDNAsequences for molecular detection using universal primer pairs. Out of 100 tested tomato samples, 11% of tomato samplesyielded a DNA fragment of 1.25 kb. Amplified PCR products were then cloned into pGEM T-Easy vector and sequencedusing new generation DNA sequencing (NGS) system. The virtual restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) analysisof 16S rDNA sequences and molecular detections were allowed to characterize possible phytoplasmas associated withdiseased plants. Our results revealed the presence of two Phytoplasma species belonging to two different ribosomal groups;„Candidatus Phytoplasma trifolii‟ (16Sr VI-A group) (Acces no. MF564268, MG732925) and „Candidatus Phytoplasmasolani‟ (16SrXII-A group) (Acces no. KY579358, MF576263). Despite a high variation in their similarity coefficient of „Ca.P. solani‟ VTS2 (0.91) and „Ca. P. trifolii‟ VTT1 (0.88) isolates, the infected tomato plants generally displayed similar diseasesymptoms during field observations. Due to its commercial interest, co-existing of these phytoplasmas in tomato fields is ofgreat phytosanitary significance not only for tomato plants but also for other crops such as vegetables, ornamentals and fieldcrops. With this study, „Ca. P. trifolii‟ associated with phytoplasma diseases of tomato (PDT) has been reported for the firsttime in tomato in Turkey.
SİPAHİOĞLU et al. (Mon,) studied this question.