Mango (Mangifera indica L.) is considered as one of the mostpopular fruits grown throughout the tropics and subtropics worldwide[1]. India is the world`s largest producers, shares around 56% of totalglobal production [2]. Production of mango is affected by a largenumber of fungal pathogens. The genus Colletotrichum contains manymorphologically similar taxa comprising endophytic, saprobic andplant pathogenic fungi [3]. Of which, C. gloeosporioides an incitant ofmango anthracnose is the most important biological constraint whichrestricts mango production in Southeast Asia [4]. C. gloeosporioidesaffects mango production both in the pre and post harvest stagesparticularly when attempting to extend storage life resulting in hugeeconomic losses about 5-20% in the form of damage on the stems,leaves, fruit decay and damage [1,5]. Anthracnose disease is clearlyidentified by morphological symptoms but sometimes the symptomsare masked as this disease survived in the form of latent infection inabsence of congenial environment. Symptom based identification andcharacterization is not accurate and reliable due to incipient infection.The diagnostic techniques, thus will assist in the monitoring thespread and distribution of pathogens. PCR technology can providevery accurate quantitative data required for control and quarantinedecisions. The ability to design PCR primers to target specific regionsof DNA has led to rapid, accurate, and sensitive detection which is agreater understanding for managing Colletotrichum diseases.The development of species-specific primers has provided apowerful tool for the detection of plant pathogens. The identificationof fungal pathogens based on polymerase chain reaction (PCR) usingspecies-specific primers is now widely used, especially for economicallyimportant plant pathogens such as quarantine listed fungi or thosethat are difficult to isolate or cause symptomless [6,7]. The internaltranscribed spacer regions (ITS1 and ITS4) within the nuclearribosomal gene clusters are particularly attractive loci for the designof PCR-based detection assays since they are readily accessible usinguniversal primers [8] typically present in high copy number increasingPCR sensitivity and often exhibiting sufficient inter-specific sequencedivergence for the designing of species-specific primers [9]. In recentyears, molecular tools have been employed to infer the evolutionaryrelationships of Colletotrichum species. Based on nu-rDNA ITSsequence data and morphological characteristics, some species havebeen segregated from the Colletotrichum gloeosporioides complex.Although ITS sequence data may help in Colletotrichum speciesidentification, it cannot alone be used to adequately address speciesdelimitation for closely related species [10]. Researchers have recentlytried to examine multiple genes sequence data to distinguish species inColletotrichum [10,11-16].These regions can be further exploited for diagnostic purposeand the primers can be designed against species specific regions fromrDNA. Therefore, a more contemporary approach aimed to developa molecular diagnostic assay for rapid and accurate diagnosis againstmango anthracnose pathogen for species-specific identification.
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