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Development of a Novel Diagnostic Tool for Cercospora Species Based on BOX-PCR System

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Abstract

The genus Cercospora contains many devastating plant pathogens linked to leaf spot diseases afflicting various plants. Identification of Cercospora species based on morphology or host plant association has proven unreliable due to simple morphology and wide host range in many cases; hence, multi-gene DNA sequence data are essential for accurate species identification. Considering the complexity and cost involved in application of multi-locus DNA phylogenetic approaches for species delineation in Cercospora; rapid and cost-effective methods are urgently needed for species recognition. In this study, we applied rep-PCR (repetitive-sequence based polymerase chain reaction) fingerprinting methods referred to as BOX-PCR to differentiate species of Cercospora. Cluster analysis of the banding patterns of 52 Cercospora strains indicated the ability of BOX-PCR technique using BOXA1R primer to generate species-specific DNA fingerprints from all the tested strains. Since this technique was able to discriminate between all the 20 examined Cercospora species during this study, which corresponded well to the species identified based on multi-gene DNA sequence data, our findings revealed the efficiency of BOX-PCR system as a suitable complementary method for molecular identification of the genus Cercospora at species level.

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Data Availability

The data used to support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon request.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the Iran National Science Foundation (INSF) and the Iranian Research Institute of Plant Protection, Agricultural Research, Education and Extension Organization (AREEO), Tehran, Iran for financial support.

Funding

This research was financially supported by the Iran National Science Foundation (INSF) and the Iranian Research Institute of Plant Protection, Agricultural Research, Education and Extension Organization (AREEO), Tehran, Iran.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Iranian Research Institute of Plant Protection, Agricultural Research, Education and Extension Organization (AREEO), P.O. Box 19395-1454, Tehran, Iran

    Mounes Bakhshi & Rasoul Zare

  2. Department of Entomology and Plant Pathology, College of Aburaihan, University of Tehran, Tehran, 33916-53755, Iran

    Leila Ebrahimi & Milad Kermanian

  3. Department of Plant Protection, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Tabriz, Tabriz, Iran

    Mahdi Arzanlou

Authors
  1. Mounes Bakhshi
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  2. Leila Ebrahimi
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  3. Rasoul Zare
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  4. Mahdi Arzanlou
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  5. Milad Kermanian
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Contributions

Experiments were conducted by MB and MK. Data analyses were conducted by MB, LE and MA. RZ and MB contributed to the funding acquisition. The first draft of the manuscript was written by MB and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. MB and RZ read and approved the final manuscript. All authors have agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Mounes Bakhshi.

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Supplementary Information

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284_2022_2989_MOESM1_ESM.doc

Supplementary file1 (DOC 118 KB)—Strains used in this study. IRAN Iranian Fungal Culture Collection, Iranian Research Institute of Plant Protection, Tehran, Iran

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Bakhshi, M., Ebrahimi, L., Zare, R. et al. Development of a Novel Diagnostic Tool for Cercospora Species Based on BOX-PCR System. Curr Microbiol 79, 290 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00284-022-02989-0

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