• Journal of Plant Biotechnology
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• v.42 no.1
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• pp.43-48
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• 2015

It is a serious situation that the farmers' income has gradually decreased due to the decline of productivity of fruit trees infected with viroids. It has been known that Persimmon viroid (PVd) and Citrus viroid (CVd) are economically important viroids that can infected persimmon. In this study, the incidence of CVd and PVd in 'Fuyu' persimmon were identified as 41% and 34% in JeollaNam-do, respectively. The collected persimmon samples infected by both PVd and CVd were used for testing efficiency of the viroid inactivation methods. The samples were subjected to single treatment of the heat treatment ($37^{\circ}C$), cold treatment ($4^{\circ}C$), or antiviral agent treatment (Ribavirin), and double treatment of combinations of the three methods. Viroid inactivation efficiency was confirmed through RT-PCR. In the case of the samples subjected to cold treatment for 4 weeks, the viroid inactivation efficiency was most significantly high as 67% against the survival rate of 100%. In addition, in the case of the samples treated for 2 weeks with the antiviral agents and cold treatment, the viroid inactivation rate was similar to that of the cold treatment. In conclusion, the cold treatment showed the highest viroid inactivation efficiency, and this result will provide valuable information for production of viroid-free persimmon.

• Journal of Plant Biotechnology
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• v.49 no.3
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• pp.193-206
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• 2022

Astringent persimmon (Diospyros kaki Thunb.) is an important fruit crop in Korea; it possesses significant medicinal potential. However, knowledge regarding the pathogens affecting this crop, particularly, viruses and viroids, is limited. In the present study, reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and high-throughput transcriptome sequencing (HTS) were used to investigate the viruses and viroids infecting astringent persimmons cultivated in Korea. A one-step multiplex RT-PCR (mRT-PCR) method for the simultaneous detection of the pathogens was developed by designing species-specific primers and selecting the primer pairs via combination and detection limit testing. Seven of the sixteen cultivars tested were found to be infection-free. The RT-PCR and HTS analyses identified two viruses and one viroid in the infected samples (n = 51/100 samples collected from 16 cultivars). The incidence of single infections (n = 39/51) was higher than that of mixed infections (n = 12/51); the infection rate of the Persimmon cryptic virus was the highest (n = 31/39). Comparison of the monoplex and mRT-PCR results using randomly selected samples confirmed the efficiency of mRT-PCR for the identification of pathogens. Collectively, the present study provides useful resources for developing disease-free seedlings; further, the developed mRT-PCR method can be extended to investigate pathogens in other woody plants.