Abstract:A comparison of the detection sensitivity of five primer pairs (fOI1/rOI2c, fOI2/r23S1, fA2/rJ5, fP535/rP535, fP400/rP400) for citrus huanglongbing pathogen was carried out using simple PCR, semi-nested PCR and nested PCR. The result showed that different primer pairs had distinct detection sensitivity. The most sensitive primer pair fP400/rP400 was nearly thousand times more sensitive than primer pair fOI2/r23S1, from the highest to the lowest were fP400/rP400>fP535/rP535>fA2/rJ5>fOI1/rOI2c>fOI2/r23S1. The sensitivity of semi-nested PCR and nested PCR were much higher than that of simple PCR, which can detect out the utmost concentration of 10-7ng/μL, and theres no obvious difference between each other. Therefore, it is important to choose sensitive primer pairs which amplify much smaller target fragment for the detection of citrus huanglongbing pathogen. Especially when citrus huanglongbing pathogen is extremely low in the samples, it is essential to choose much more sensitive primes in order to avoid false negative.