Occurrence of a ‘Candidatus Phytoplasma aurantifolia’ strain associated with Euonymus japonicus fasciation

Euonymus japonicus is grown in parks and gardens in Iran. During 2017-2021, stem fasciation symptoms were observed up to 8.4% in the Yazd area. Nested polymerase chain reaction using P1/P7, followed by R16mF2/R16mR2 and R16F2n/R16R2 primer pairs was carried out on DNAs extracted from twenty-eight symptomatic and six symptomless plants. After 35 cycles, DNA fragments of about 1.8, 1.4 and 1.25 kbp respectively were obtained from symptomatic E. japonicus samples but not from the symptomless ones. R16F2n/R16R2 trimmed sequences for six samples showed 100% sequence identity to each other showing 99.2% identity with ‘Candidatus Phytoplasma australasia’, ribosomal group 16SrII. This is the first report a 16SrII phytoplasma strain associated with fasciation of E. japonicus. Since this species is grown on the margins of parks and gardens it may have an important role in the epidemiology and spread of this phytoplasma as reservoir.