31 Original Paper Plant Protection Science, 58, 2022 (1): 31–39 https://doi.org/10.17221/115/2021-PPS Phytoplasmas are prokaryotic phytopathogens of agricultural crops belonging to Acholeplasmata- ceae family, Mollicutes class, and ‘Candidatus Phy- toplasma’ genus adopted by International Organi- zation of Mycoplasma (IRPCM 2004). ey have been first explored by Doi et al. (1967) since then, many distinct new species have been described in nature (Acosta-Pérez et al. 2017; Kra et al. 2017; Naderali et al. 2017). ey are gram-positive, non- cell walled, having a pleomorphic structure in dif- ferent morphological forms, phloem restricted bac- teria with a low quantity of guanine and cytosine bases in their genetic material (Bertaccini & Duduk 2010; Sugio et al. 2011). Phytoplasmas cause destructive damage to many plant species including ornamental plants, vegeta- bles, grapevines, and fruit trees around the world and are considered an economically restricting fac- tor in many cultivated plants of high agricultural value (Bertaccini et al. 2014; Maejima et al. 2014; Usta et al. 2018). Phytoplasmas characteristically cause witches’ broom, proliferation in shooting and rooting, flower defects, and increase in the host’s metabolic activities by altering phytohor- Detection, in silico analysis and molecular diversity of phytoplasmas from solanaceous crops in Turkey Mustafa Usta 1 , Abdullah Güller 2 *, Hikmet Murat Sipahioğlu 3 1 Department of Plant Protection, Faculty of Agriculture, Van Yuzuncu Yil University, Van, Turkey 2 Department of Plant Protection, Faculty of Agriculture, Bingol University, Bingol, Turkey 3 Department of Plant Protection, Faculty of Agriculture, Malatya Turgut Ozal University, Malatya, Turkey *Corresponding author: aguller@bingol.edu.tr Citation: Usta M., Güller A., Sipahioğlu H.M. (2022): Detection, in silico analysis and molecular diversity of phytoplasmas from solanaceous crops in Turkey. Plant Protect. Sci., 58: 31–39. Abstract: Phytoplasma-like symptoms of leaf yellowing and calyx malformation were observed in eggplant (Solanum melongena L.), upward leaves and fruit malformation in pepper (Capsicum annuum L.), and aerial tuber formation in potato (S. tuberosum L.) during the survey performed in the late season (August to September) of 2015 and 2016 in Van province (Turkey). A total of 100 samples were tested by nested-PCR using universal primer pairs to assess the sanitary status of the solanaceous crops and to characterise the phytoplasma isolates. Among them, seven sam- ples resulted in a 1.25 kb DNA fragment, and five (two eggplants, two peppers, and one potato) were molecularly characterised (Accession No.: KY579357, KT595210, MF564267, MF564266, and MH683601). BLAST and the virtual restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) analysis of 16S rRNA genes revealed the presence of two distinct phytoplasma infections in solanaceous crops: ‘Candidatus Phytoplasma trifolii’ a member of the clover proliferation group (16SrVI) and subgroup A and ‘Candidatus P. solani’ a member of the stolbur group (16SrXII) and subgroup A. e virtual RFLP analysis and calculated coefficients of RFLP pattern similarities further revealed a remarkable ge- netic diversity among the ‘Candidatus P. solani’ isolates infecting pepper (similarity coefficient of 0.90) and eggplant (similarity coefficients of 0.98 and 1.00) at the same geographical area. is is the first report of the natural occurrence of ‘Candidadtus P. trifolii’ in potato from the Eastern Anatolia region, Turkey. Keywords: ‘Candidatus Phytoplasma solani’; ‘Candidatus Phytoplasma trifolii’; nested-PCR; virtual RFLP; 16S rRNA; pepper; eggplant; potato