First Report of Chilli leaf curl India virus Infecting Mentha spicata (Neera) in India

Abstract

Mint (Mentha spp.; family Lamiaceae) is an important essential oil-bearing crop cultivated on the Indian subcontinent as a cash crop for the international market and industrial purposes. Since May 2010, typical symptoms such as yellow vein, leaf yellowing, mosaic, crinkling, and cupping were observed, which led to significant yield loss in spearmint (M. spicata var. Neera) at CIMAP experimental fields and farmers' fields of Badaun, Rampur, and Moradabad regions of Uttar Pradesh province, India. Disease incidence was recorded in the range of 40 to 50%. Mentha spp. has been reported to be affected by many viral diseases (3). Due to the absence of fungal/bacterial infection, lack of mechanical transmission of the pathogen, and presence of whiteflies in the fields, the causal pathogen was suspected to be a begomovirus. Total genomic DNA was extracted from the leaves of naturally infected and healthy samples of Mentha by the CTAB protocol. Eighteen symptomatic samples were collected from different location of fields and screened for the presence of begomovirus. DNA from these samples was used as PCR template to amplify a 771-bp fragment using begomovirus coat protein (CP) gene specific primers. Eleven of 18 (61.1%) samples were found positive. PCR products were cloned into the pGEM-T Easy (Promega) and sequenced using the universal M13F/M13R primers showed sequence similarity with Chilli leaf curl India virus. To amplify the full-length DNA-A/B and a possible β-satellite, a second detection method was used: rolling circle amplification (RCA) using the TempliPhi 100 Amplification System (GE Healthcare). RCA products were digested independently with various restriction enzymes: BamHI, EcoRI, EcoRV, HincII, HindIII, SacI, and KpnI. Digested products were resolved on 1% agarose gel and the bands corresponding to ~2.7 and ~1.3 kb were purified using Nucleospin Gel and PCR Clean-up Kit and cloned into the respective sites of pGreen0029 vector. The sequence of full-length DNA-A (2,749 bp) and β-satellite component (1,347-bp) were obtained and deposited in NCBI GenBank with accession nos. KF312364 and KF364485, respectively. The sequence analysis showed maximum nucleotide identity (99%) with Chilli leaf curl India virus (FM877858) and distant affinities (≤88%) with other begomoviruses. The sequence analysis of isolated β-satellite showed 93% identity with Ageratum yellow vein virus satellite (AJ252072.1). No presence of DNA-B was detected using the universal primer PBL1v2040/PCRc1 (2), thus confirming it to be a monopartite begomovirus (1). Viruliferous whiteflies (Bemisia tabaci) proved Koch's postulation by inducing similar symptoms on healthy plants while aphids (Myzus persicae) failed to transmit the virus. To our knowledge, this is the first report of Chilli leaf curl India virus infecting M. spicata var. Neera in India. Mint is widely grown together with other reported hosts of begomoviruses, and thus could pose a serious threat as future expansion of begomovirus to new crops. Hence, the development of resistant varieties coupled with the implementation of adapted integrated pest management strategies would be essential for successful production of mint crops. References: (1) Y. Kumar et al. Plant Pathol. 60:1040, 2011. (2) M. R. Rojas et al. Plant Dis. 77:340, 1993. (3) I. E. Tzanetakis et al. Plant Dis. 94:4, 2010.

Identification of a monopartite begomovirus associated with yellow vein mosaic of Mentha longifolia in Saudi Arabia

“…It is well recognized that genetic recombination plays a significant role in the diversification and evolution of Geminiviruses. Recombination has been documented to occur between geminivirus, between betasatellites, alphasatellites and between helper viruses and betasatellites (Ajlan and Ghanem 2007;Duffy and Holmes 2008;Khan et al 2008;Nawaz-ul-Rehman and Fauquet 2009;Lefeuvre et al 2010;Paprotka and Jeske 2010;Sivalingam et al 2010;Idris et al 2011Idris et al , 2012Huang et al 2013;Al-Saleh et al 2014a, b;Hosseinzadeh et al 2014;Kenyon et al 2014;Khan et al 2014;Paz-Carrasco et al 2014;Yang et al 2014;Tahir et al 2015;Sohrab 2016Sohrab , 2017Al Rwahnih et al 2017). The natural infection of TYLCV in M. longifolia showed the gradual increase of begomovirus host range which may cause heavy economic losses to the other cultivated as well as medicinal and weed crops in the near future in the Kingdom.…”

“…Recently, the natural occurrence of begomovirus-caused disease in many crops like Amaranthus, Beans, Cucurbits, Okra, Tomato, and Corchorus has been reported in Saudi Arabia (Idris et al 2012;Al-Saleh et al 2014a, b;Sohrab 2016Sohrab , 2017Sohrab et al 2016aSohrab et al , b, c, d, e, 2017a. Globally, many viruses have been reported from mint species (Tzanetakis et al 2010) and the natural occurrence of begomoviruses on mint species has been reported as Tomato leaf curl Pakistan virus (Samad et al 2008), Tomato leaf curl Karnataka virus, Cotton leaf curl Multan virus (Borah and Dasgupta 2012), Chilli leaf curl India virus, Ageratum yellow vein virus betasatellite (Saeed et al 2014. Based on the published information on natural occurrence of begomoviruses on various crops in the Kingdom, this work was conducted to identify the association of virus with yellow vein mosaic disease of M. longifolia.…”

Molecular evidence for the occurrence of TYLCV on Mentha longifolia in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

“…Recently, the occurrence of begomoviruses causing disease in many crops like Amaranthus, Beans, Corchorus, Cucurbits, Okra, Tomato has been reported from Saudi Arabia [9][10][11][12][13][14]. Globally, many viruses infecting mint species have been identified and published [6][7][8]. In this study, an association of begomovirus with yellow vein disease of M. longifolia in Saudi Arabia has been discussed.…”

“…Globally, the full plant of mint or essential oil extracted is being used for various purposes including Saudi Arabia. Currently, many begomoviruses infecting mint have been reported earlier from multiple locations [6][7][8]15] but no report from Arabian Peninsula. Many cultivated and weed crops are reported to be infected with begomovirus in the kingdom with high disease incidence rate.…”

Current status, breeding strategies and future prospects for managing chilli leaf curl virus disease and associated begomoviruses in Chilli (Capsicum spp.)

“…It has been suggested that the high rate of recombination events of the DNA-A component and their respective betasatellites are the major reasons for the occurrence of ChiLCV in the previous non-host crops such as Cape Daisy ( Osteospermum fruticosum ) ( Mishra et al., 2020a ), Amaranthus spp. ( George et al., 2014 ), Mentha spicata ( Saeed et al., 2014 ), Petunia spp. ( Al-Shihi et al., 2014 ) and Mirabilis jalapa ( Jaidi et al., 2017 ).…”