First Report of Cucumber mosaic virus Subgroup II Infecting Lycopersicon esculentum in India

Abstract

During a survey in January 2006 near Salem in Tamil Nadu (south India), Cucumber mosaic virus was observed infecting tomatoes with an incidence of more than 70%. Plants exhibiting severe mosaic, leaf puckering, and stunted growth were collected, and the virus was identified using diagnostic hosts, evaluation of physical properties of the virus, compound enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) (ELISA Lab, Washington State University, Prosser), reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), and restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis (DSMZ, S. Winter, Germany). To determine the specific CMV subgroup, total RNA was extracted from 50 infected leaf samples using the RNeasy plant RNA isolation kit (Qiagen, Hilden, Germany) and tested for the presence of the complete CMV coat protein gene using specific primers as described by Rizos et al. (1). A fragment of the coat protein was amplified and subsequently digested with MspI to reveal a pattern of two fragments (336 and 538 bp), indicating CMV subgroup II. No evidence of mixed infection with CMV subgroup I was obtained when CMV isolates representing subgroups I (PV-0419) and II (PV-0420), available at the DSMZ Plant Virus Collection, were used as controls. Only CMV subgroup I has been found to predominantly infect tomato in the Indian subcontinent, although Verma et al. (2) identified CMV subgroup II infecting Pelargonium spp., an ornamental plant. To our knowledge, this is the first report of CMV subgroup II infecting tomato crops in India. References: (1) H. Rizos et al. J. Gen. Virol. 73:2099, 1992. (2) N. Verma et al. J. Biol. Sci. 31:47, 2006.

Biological and Molecular Characterization of Cucumber mosaic virus Subgroup II Isolate Causing Severe Mosaic in Cucumber

“…Mainly, subgroup I isolates has been reported and there are few reports of subgroup II isolates [1,15,47,53]. The isolate under study showed up to 99 and 76 % similarity to the subgroup II and I isolates, respectively.…”

“…Previously, shoestring like leaves symptoms were reported only with some subgroup I strains [2,20,32,46,48]. From India also there was report of mosaic symptoms on tomato by subgroup II strain [47] and now in a recent observation it was found that shoestring symptoms were not restricted to subgroup I. A subgroup II isolate Tss-In developed shoestring symptoms on tomato [15].…”

“…Broad host range of CMV from subgroup I and II have been identified in India, which includes: Chrysanthemum [45]; Ocimum sanctum and Zinnia elegans [34]; Amaranthus tricolor, Datura innoxia and Hyoscyamus muticus [44]; Gerbera [53]; Vanilla [28]; Pelargonium [52]; Piper longum and Piper betel [19]; Rouvolfia serpentine [35]; Jatropha curcas [36]; Catharanthus roseus [40]; Daucas carrota [1]; Banana [24,29]; Lycopersicum esculentum [15,25,47]; Gladiolus [13]. Although many CMV strains were isolated from India, but incomplete information is available at the genome level about these isolates.…”

Biological and Molecular Characterization of Cucumber mosaic virus Isolate Causing Shoestring Disease of Tomato in India which has Closer Affinity to European or East Asian Isolates of CMV

“…In India, CMV infecting tomato was characterized on the basis of biological and serological level by Kiranmai et al [6,7]. Restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis of the PCR product of the CP region of a subgroup II CMV strain causing severe mosaic on tomato in south India was also reported [25]. The association of CMV with shoestring symptoms of tomato for the first time in India was identified by us [16].…”

Transmission of Cucumber Mosaic Virus (CMV) infecting banana by aphid and mechanical methods

“…In India, the occurrence of CMV has been reported from many hosts such as Egyptian henbane (Samad et al, 2000), gladiolus (Raj et al, 2002), Lycopersicum esculentum (Sudhakar et al, 2006), Geranium (Verma et al, 2006), banana (Aglave et al, 2007), Rauvolfia serpentina and Jatropha curcas (Raj et al, 2007(Raj et al, , 2008. However, only limited reports are available on biological and molecular characteristics of these isolates (Madhubala et al, 2005, Verma et al, 2004.…”