'Candidatus Phytoplasma mali'- apple interaction: recovery phenomenon and use of fungal endophyte in the disease control.

Supervisor : Rita Musetti

The main activity of my doctorate research focuses on the interactions occurring between Candidatus Phytoplasma mali (Ca. P. mali) (the causal agent of apple proliferation disease) and apple trees. In particular, the phenomenon called ‘recovery’, a spontaneous remission of disease symptoms, will be investigated. As already demonstrated in previously published work, recovery is characterized by phloem ultrastructural and biochemical modifications associated to changes in phloem proteins expression patterns (PP; SEO; Callose synthases).
A first aim of my research will be to perform further investigations about the expression level of some other genes related to the plant defence mechanisms and potentially involved in the recovery phenomenon. We focused both on pathogenesis-related (PR) genes, induced by salycilic acid and on other defence-related genes involved in the jasmonic acid pathway. 
The samples for experiments were collected from an experimental orchard where healthy, diseased and recovered plants were present. We proceeded to the extraction of RNA from leaf tissue, to quantification and quality control using the NanoDrop electrophoresis, to reverse transcription and to Real Time PCR analyses. 
The primers used were designed using computer tools in charge and validated by PCR. The expression data obtained were then processed and analyzed statistically to verify the significantly of data variation and to perform the statistical test ANOVA. 
A second set of experiments has been prepared and will be performed, to verify if apple fungal endophytes could induce resistance mechanisms in apple trees, against ’Ca. P. mali’. Forty young apple trees, maintained in pots, were assigned to examine the endopyte-plant-phytoplasma interaction. The plants were divided into four groups (one group inoculated with the fungal endophyte Epicoccum nigrum, the second with both endophyte and the phytoplasma , the third infected only by phytoplasma and the last were the control uninoculated group). Comparisons between the different plant groups will be performed.

Biography and contacts
Khaled Farhan was born in 1982 in Amman-Jordan, 2007 graduated from the Mediterranean agronomic institute of Chania (Crete-Greece) in Sustainable Agricultural science and in 2010 started the doctoral course at the PhD school “Agriculture Science and Biotechnology” at the University of Udine.

khaled.farhan@uniud.it
[phone 36637 55 600]