Browsing by Author "Moudjeber, Rym"
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- Design and characterization of molecular markers for the detection of predation of Trioza erytreaePublication . Moudjeber, Rym; Baptista, Paula; Ramos, Vítor Manuel CapelaTrioza erytreae (Hemiptera, Psylloidea) is an important citrus pest being also one of the vectors of Candidatus Liberibacter spp., the causal bacterial agents of citrus HUANGLONGBING (greening) disease, deemed as the most devastating disease for citrus crops. In 2014, T. erytreae was detected in NW Iberian Peninsula, being the first detection of the pest in continental Europe. The spreading of T. erytreae towards Iberian Peninsula is being fast, threatening the citrus production in Europe. Due to the progressively strict EU policies on pesticides, their harmful effects and not successful eradication of T. erytreae attempts, the use of insecticides is regarded as impracticable. Thus, biocontrol using natural enemies is seen as an environmentally sound and effective approach to limited this pest. Hence, the main goal of this work was to develop PCR- based diagnostic methods that can detect for the presence of DNA from T. erytreae in the gut of arthropod predators. Fifteen T. erytreae species-specific primer sets targeting the mitochondrial COI, SSU and LSU regions were designed and tested for their specificity and sensitivity against phylogenetically-related psyllids. Among the 15 primers sets tested, two targeting the COI gene (T3F - T2R) and the rrnL gene (LSU_F2LSU_R1) showed to be highly specific and sensitive to detected T. erytreae DNA, inclusively when mixed at equal ratios with DNA of closely-related taxa of Trioza. The small size of the fragment amplified by these two primer sets (199 bp and 291 bp, for T3F - T2R and LSU_F2-LSU_R1, respectively), suggested their suitability to detected fragmented T. erytreae DNA in the gut of potential predators. Despite these promising results, the feasibility of these primer sets to recognize predators collected in natural settings must be validated in future works.