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Plant Viruses, Viroids and Phytoplasmas: Insight into Evolutionary, Pathogenicity, and...
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Plant Viruses, Viroids and Phytoplasmas: Insight into Evolutionary, Pathogenicity, and Epidemiology Studies—2nd Edition

A special issue of Plants (ISSN 2223-7747). This special issue belongs to the section "Plant Protection and Biotic Interactions".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 January 2026 | Viewed by 1018

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Luca Ferretti

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Research Centre for Plant Protection and Certification, Council for Agricultural Research and Economics (CREA-DC), Via C.G. Bertero 22, 00156 Rome, Italy
Interests: plant virology; diagnosis; phytoplasmas; validation of detection methods; reference laboratory; reference material; phytosanitary measures; quarantine organisms
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Anna Taglienti

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Research Centre for Plant Protection and Certification, Council for Agricultural Research and Economics, 00156 Rome, Italy
Interests: plant virology; diagnosis; virus elimination; biopesticides; high-throughput sequencing
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Plant viruses, viroids, and phytoplasmas are unculturable pathogens recognized as responsible for increasing threats to sustainable food production and environmental protection globally. The characterization of their genome is of great interest for several applications in the plant health field. First and foremost, developing molecular diagnostic tests is critical for setting proper control measures and minimizing the impact on crops. Moreover, molecular characterization is crucial for taxonomic classification, especially in the case of phytoplasmas. Finally, it allows us to perform phylogenetic analyses that explore genetic diversity and the structure of plant virus populations for evolutionary, pathogenicity, and epidemiology studies.

This Special Issue of Plants will highlight the identification and molecular characterization of plant viruses, viroids, and phytoplasmas, with particular attention given to their genome organization, molecular variability, and taxonomic features. Therefore, this Special Issue welcomes the submission of articles (including original research papers, abstracts, and reviews) that focus on the evolutionary, pathogenicity, and epidemiology investigations of the pathogens mentioned above.

Dr. Luca Ferretti
Dr. Anna Taglienti
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Plants is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • molecular characterization
  • diagnosis
  • phylogenetic analysis
  • epidemiology
  • genetic diversity
  • taxonomy

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Related Special Issue

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

11 pages, 2347 KB  
Article
Cucumber Green Mottle Mosaic Virus Decreases Chlorophyll a Content in Cucurbit Crops by Upregulating the Key Gene in Chlorophyll Catabolic Pathway, Chlorophyllase 1
by Zhenggang Li, Yafei Tang, Guobing Lan, Lin Yu, Shanwen Ding, Zifu He and Xiaoman She
Plants 2025, 14(19), 3086; https://doi.org/10.3390/plants14193086 - 6 Oct 2025
Viewed by 358
Abstract
Cucumber green mottle mosaic virus (CGMMV, Tobamovirus viridimaculae) is a tobamovirus that induces leaf green mottling, mosaic patterns, bleaching, fruit sponginess, rotting, and malformation symptoms in various cucurbit crops. The underlying mechanisms by which CGMMV elicits these symptoms have yet to be [...] Read more.
Cucumber green mottle mosaic virus (CGMMV, Tobamovirus viridimaculae) is a tobamovirus that induces leaf green mottling, mosaic patterns, bleaching, fruit sponginess, rotting, and malformation symptoms in various cucurbit crops. The underlying mechanisms by which CGMMV elicits these symptoms have yet to be elucidated. In the present study, we observed that the infection of CGMMV in bottle gourd, but not in N. benthamiana, led to the significant upregulation of a key gene involved in chlorophyll degradation, Chlorophyllase 1 (CLH1). This induction may be closely linked to chlorophyll degradation, particularly that of chlorophyll a (Clh a) in bottle gourd plants. Phylogenetic analysis showed that the amino acid sequence of BgCLH1 has a closer relationship with those of CLH1 from other cucurbit crops and has a relatively farther relationship with those of the well-studied CLH1 from Arabidopsis thaliana and Citrus sinensis. Further, confocal microscopy analysis indicated that BgCLH1 may be localized to the cytoplasm instead of the chloroplast. Moreover, silencing of the BgCLH1 gene not only reduced viral accumulation but also resulted in an increase in chlorophyll content. Similar results were also observed in watermelon, suggesting that this regulatory mechanism may be conserved across cucurbit crops. Our findings thus reveal a complex and intricate interplay between viral infection and the chlorophyll metabolic pathway. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Plant Viruses, Viroids and Phytoplasmas: Insight into Evolutionary, Pathogenicity, and Epidemiology Studies—2nd Edition)
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22 pages, 4493 KB  
Article
A Witches’-Broom Disease of Cultivated Strawberry Associated with ‘Candidatus Phytoplasma Rubi’-Related Strains in Southern Italy
by Carmine Marcone, Carmine Palmieri and Alberto Sellitto
Plants 2025, 14(18), 2914; https://doi.org/10.3390/plants14182914 - 19 Sep 2025
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Abstract
In the Campania region of southern Italy, a formerly undescribed witches’-broom disease of cultivated strawberry characterized by symptoms similar to those of strawberry witches’-broom and multiplier diseases occurring in North America, has been observed. Strawberry witches’-broom and multiplier diseases are not known to [...] Read more.
In the Campania region of southern Italy, a formerly undescribed witches’-broom disease of cultivated strawberry characterized by symptoms similar to those of strawberry witches’-broom and multiplier diseases occurring in North America, has been observed. Strawberry witches’-broom and multiplier diseases are not known to occur in Europe. To elucidate the etiology of the new strawberry disease occurring in southern Italy and to determine the taxonomic position of the presumable causal agent, field observations and PCR assays using universal and group-specific phytoplasma primers followed by multigene sequence analysis were carried out. All of the symptomatic strawberry plants examined tested phytoplasma positive with universal primers and primers specific to the elm yellows (EY) phytoplasma group or 16SrV group. The percentage of diseased plants in the fields was about 30%. Data obtained from sequence and phylogenetic and virtual RFLP analyses of PCR-amplified rDNA (16S rDNA and 16S/23S rDNA spacer region), rpsV (rpl22) and rpsC (rps3), map, imp and groEL gene sequences, showed that the diseased strawberry plants harbored phytoplasma strains which were identical or nearly identical to each other and to strains of the rubus stunt (RuS) agent ‘Ca. Phytoplasma rubi’, a member of the 16SrV group, subgroup 16SrV-E. The 16S rDNA sequence similarity among the strawberry-infecting phytoplasma strains ranged from 99.1 to 99.9%. These strains shared the same range of 16S rDNA sequence similarity with RuS phytoplasma strains including the reference strain RUS of ‘Ca. Phytoplasma rubi’. This is the first report on the occurrence of RuS phytoplasma in naturally affected strawberry plants. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Plant Viruses, Viroids and Phytoplasmas: Insight into Evolutionary, Pathogenicity, and Epidemiology Studies—2nd Edition)
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