Detection of sandal spike phytoplasma by polymerase chain reaction

Spike disease affected sandal (Santalum album L.) tissues were screened for the presence of the pathogen, a non-culturable phytoplasma using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) technique. Oligonucleotide primers specific to the conserved region of 16S rRNA gene were used to amplify a 558 bp sequence of the phytoplasma. Four DNA fragments were obtained when the PCR products after 20 cycles of amplification were subjected to restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis (RFLP) with AluI restriction endonuclease. The technique confirms that sandal spike phytoplasma belongs to group I of the eleven major phytoplasma groups.