Novel PCR primers for detection of genetically diverse virulent Agrobacterium tumefaciens biovar 1 strains

Novel PCR primers were developed to amplify a 243-bp fragment of an intergenic region between gene 5 and tms 2 on the T-DNA of Agrobacterium tumefaciens biovar 1 . These primers exhibit 100% positive correlation with strain virulence, 100% negative correlation with avirulence, and did not generate extraneous bands, thus facilitating robust real-time PCR detection.