Abstract

NARANJO FELICIANO, Eber  and  MARTINEZ ZUBIAUR, Yamila. Advances in the diagnosis of bacteriol wilt (Ralstonia solanacearum): current situation in Cuba and perspectives. Rev. Protección Veg. [online]. 2013, vol.28, n.3, pp. 160-170. ISSN 1010-2752.

Bacterial wilt caused by Ralstonia solanacearum (Smith) Yabuuchi, is a devastating plant disease that affects several crops of worldwide economic importance. The pathogen ability for surviving in different environments and causing latent infections becomes an accurate diagnosis as a key point for the disease prevention. The aim of this work was the critical review of these techniques and the analysis of those factors affecting their performance parameters. Traditional methods based on in vitro cultures and pathogenicity tests are laborious, dependent of plant pathogen interactions and slow for obtaining the results. Advanced techniques based on serological principles and nucleic acid detection allow the automated and sensitive pathogen detection, but serology depends on antibody quality and molecular techniques are limited by oligonucleotide specificity and presence of inhibitory substances in the samples. Post-test probability analysis in function of the prevalence provides a higher accuracy in the decision making about the appropriate techniques for diagnosis. Combined use of several techniques based on different biological principles increases diagnosis reliability, and is therefore recommended for quarantine and certification of plant material imported by Cuba. The inclusion of a new technique into a diagnosis scheme requires a previous exhaustive testing of its performance with inter and intra laboratories evaluations.

Keywords : detection; techniques; sensibility; specificity; prevalence.

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