Rapid diagnosis of sugarcane red rot by dot-immunobinding assay (DIBA) technique

Abstract

A high sugar and early maturing, sugarcane var. CoC.671 has been found susceptible to red rot disease caused by Colletotrichum falcatum Went. However, during early stages in the field, diagnosis of the disease is very difficult. Therefore, a protocol for rapid diagnosis of sugarcane red rot infection by using DIBA technique is described in the present paper. Antigenic proteins of C. falcatum were SDS-PAGE separated on 12% gel, whereas DIBA was performed on nitrocellulose membrane. A series of dilutions of infected test samples depicted dark blue precipitate on the nitrocellulose membrane due to the antigen and antibody reaction. This indicated the presence of red rot antigen in the test sample and hence the disease. The DIBA described in this study is simple, rapid and specific for laboratory diagnosis of sugar cane (var. CoC.671) red rot infection in the planting material at an early growth stage.