Scientific and technical activities

Ralstonia solanacearum (Smith) is an important pathogen worldwide. A new pair of primers, UDP-F and UDP-R, was designed based on the 159 bp target fragment of Chen et al. (2010) which is originated from the sequence of the upstream region of the UDP-3-O-acyl-GlcNAc deacetylase gene conserved only in R. solanacearum. The result indicated that this pair of primers could be used to detect R. solanacearum directly from the bacterial suspensions by using conventional polymerase chain reaction (PCR) technique. However, these primers had so far only been tested with close relatives (Pseudomonas syzygii and the blood disease bacterium (BDB)) of R. solanacearum, so further experimentation should be carried out to optimize the PCR technique and check the specificity and sensitivity of primers and the protocol. Furthermore, the application of these primers in real time PCR should be investigated.