Abstract

‘Candidatus Phytoplasma pyri’ associated with pear decline in Italy and Chile severely affects orchards. To its molecular characterization, results of multilocus RFLP analyses on seven phytoplasma genes (16Sr, aceF, secY, leu, secA, tuf, and lsu36p) resulted a promising tool. To complete this work and better understand the discrimination ability of the used genes the amplified DNAs obtained from Chilean and Italian strains will further be cloned and sequenced.