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

STOLOWICZ, F; PARMA, Y.; LAROCCA, L; MARANO MR; AGOSTINI JP; SENDÍN L; FILIPPONE P.; CASTAGNARO, AP; VOJNOV, ADRIAN ALBERTO

Foz Iguazu

Congreso; International Citrus Congress 2016; 2016

Huanglongbing (HLB), the most devastating disease affecting citrus trees, is caused by the bacterium Candidatus Liberibacter, and it?s transmitted by the insect vector Diaphorina citri. HLB has been reported in the US, East Asian countries and Brazil. This disease is still not founded in Argentina, but the presence of the vector insect make the HLB an important challenge for Argentinian citrus producers. Recently, the SENASA (Argentinian National Health Service and Food Quality) declared, by Resolution 959/2009, phytosanitary emergency with respect to HLB, in Argentinian citrus area. Here, we presented the first results obtained using a new prototype of a kit for fast and simple diagnosis based on the isothermal amplification of a specific gene of the bacteria. We assayed several potential positive and negative D. citri samples from Brazil and Argentina. Our results showed that all, except one, of the analyzed insect from Brazil were infected, but none of the Argentina. We concluded that the developed kit, that does not require highly sophisticated equipment, will be an important tool to facilitate the analysis of all potentially infected insect vector to detect the causative agent of the disease in field.