Multiplex PCR Assay for the Simultaneous Detection of Major Pathogenic Bacteria in Soybean

Bacterial diseases in soybean are bacterial pustule by Xanthomonas axonopodis pv. glycines, wildfire by Pseudomonas syringae pv. tabaci, bacterial blight by Pseudomonas savastanoi pv. glycines and bacterial brown spot by Pseudomonas syringae pv. syringae in Korea. It is difficult to identify each disease by early symptoms in fields, because the initial symptoms of these diseases are very similar to each other. In this study, we developed multiplex PCR detection method for rapid and accurate diagnosis of bacterial diseases. The glycinecin A of X. axonopodis pv. glycines, the tabtoxin of P. syringae pv. tabaci, the coronatine of P. savastanoi pv. glycines and the syringopeptin of P. syringae pv. syringae have been reported previously. These bacteriocin or phytotoxin producing genes were targeted to design the specific diagnostic primers. The primer pairs for diagnosis of each bacterial diseases were selected without nonspecific reactions. The studies on simultaneous diagnosis method were also conducted with primarily selected 21 primers. As a result, we selected PCR primer sets for multiplex PCR. Sizes of the amplified PCR products using the multiplex PCR primer set consist of 280, 355, 563 and 815 bp, respectively. This multiplex PCR method provides a efficient, sensitive and rapid tool for the diagnosis of the bacterial diseases in soybean.