FIRST RESULTS OBTAINED BY USING A FAST AND SIMPLE DIAGNOSTIC KIT FOR HLB CAUSAL AGENT DETECTION

STOLOWICS FG; PARMA Y; L. LAROCCA; MARANO MR; AGOSTINI JP; VOJNOV A

Congreso; XIII Congreso intrnacional de Citricultura.; 2016

p { margin-bottom: 0.1in; line-height: 120%; }a:link { }Huanglongbing(HLB), the most devastating disease affecting citrus trees, is causedby the bacterium Candi-datusLiberibacter and it?s transmitted bythe insect vector Diaphorina citri. HLBhas been reported in the US, East Asian countries and Brazil. Thisdisease is still not founded in Argentina, but the presence of thevector insect make the HLB an important challenge for Argentiniancitrus producers. Recently, the SENASA (Argentinian National HealthService and Food Quality) declared, by Resolution 959/2009, phytosanitaryemergency with respect to HLB, in Argentinian citrus area. Here, wepresented the first results obtained using a new prototype of a kitfor fast and simple diagnosis based on the isothermal amplificationof a specific gene of the bacteria. We assayed several potentialpositive and negative D. citri samples from Brazil and Argentina. Ourresults showed that all, except one, of the analyzed insect fromBrazil were infected, but none of the Argentina. We concluded thatthe developed kit, that does not require highly sophisticatedequipment, will be an important tool to facilitate the analysis ofall potentially infected insect vector to detect the causative agentof the disease in field. Financialsupport: ANPCyT-Argentina, FONARSEC and MINCyT.Keywords:HLB; diagnostic; Diaphorina citri.