Papaya plants exhibiting phyllody and excessive axillary shoot proliferation were observed in 10 different fields during surveys conducted in 2019 in Pune district, Maharashtra, India. The average disease incidence for phyllody and excessive shoot proliferation was 12% and 4% respectively. The presence of phytoplasma in the infected plants was confirmed by nested PCR assay using R16F2n/R2 primer pair amplifying the 16S rRNA gene and sequence analysis. In BLASTn analysis, the sequences of nested PCR products shared 99–100% identity with phytoplasmas belonging to 16SrII group. These phytoplasmas clustered with phytoplasma sequences belonging to 16SrII group in the phylogenetic analysis. The virtual restriction fragment length polymorphism pattern derived from the sequences identified these two phytoplasmas as 16SrII-C and -D. To our knowledge, this is the first report of 16SrII-C phytoplasma in papaya worldwide and 16SrII-D phytoplasma in India.

在 2019 年在印度马哈拉施特拉邦浦那区进行的调查期间，在 10 个不同领域观察到木瓜植物表现出叶状和过度的腋芽增殖。叶状和枝条过度增殖的平均发病率分别为12%和4%。使用R16F2n/R2引物对扩增16S rRNA基因和序列分析，通过巢式PCR测定证实感染植物中存在植原体。在 BLASTn 分析中，巢式 PCR 产物的序列与属于 16SrII 组的植原体具有 99-100% 的同一性。在系统发育分析中，这些植原体与属于16SrII组的植原体序列聚集在一起。源自序列的虚拟限制性片段长度多态性模式将这两种植原体鉴定为 16SrII-C 和 -D。据我们所知，这是世界范围内木瓜中 16SrII-C 植原体和印度 16SrII-D 植原体的首次报告。