Detection of phytoplasmas associated with grapevine Flavescence dorée disease using real-time PCR

Flavescence dorée (FD) of grapevine is a serious disease caused by phytoplasmas. Currently available protocols for phytoplasma detection in grapevine are complex and time consuming. This work reports the results of a real-time PCR assay (TaqMan“) for detecting phytoplasmas in grapevines affected by FD. We obtained specific detection in samples from seven FD-affected grapevines. This method gave no signal with phytoplasmas associated with another grapevine disease (Bois noir) or with eleven reference phytoplasma strains grown in periwinkle. We propose Real-time PCR as an alternative and rapid method for the detection of phytoplasmas in grapevine.