Recombination Among Begomoviruses on Malvaceous Plants Leads to the Evolution of Okra Enation Leaf Curl Virus in Pakistan

Abstract

Whitefly transmitted begomoviruses (family Geminiviridae) are the major reason for significant yield losses of dicotyledonous crops in tropics and subtropics. Okra (Abelmoschus esculentus) is one of the important vegetable crops, and leaf curl disease caused by geminiviruses is the most important limiting factor for its production in Pakistan. Here, we report a new species of okra-infecting begomovirus in south-eastern region of Pakistan and the name Okra enation leaf curl virus (OELCuV) complex is proposed. This okra enation leaf curl disease complex (OELCuD) in Pakistan is found to be associated with Ageratum conyzoides symptomless alphasatellite (ACon-SLA). All efforts to clone the betasatellite were unsuccessful. Comprehensive sequence analyses suggest that intermalvaceous recombination between okra and cotton-infecting begomoviruses resulted in the evolution of the new species. Surprisingly, Bhendi yellow vein mosaic virus (BY-VMV) which has not been reported previously from Pakistan is the major parent while Cotton leaf curl Multan virus (CLCuMV) acts as a distant parent of the virus. Comparative recombination analysis also reveals that okrainfecting begomoviruses from south and north-western India is causing OELCuD in the Pakistan by recombining with CLCuMV at the Rep (1964Rep ( -1513. Recombination is common among geminiviruses and recombining of BYVMV and CLCuMV resulted in a new species: OELCuV. To the best of our knowledge, this evolution of a new species of okra-infecting begomovirus is the first report of intermalvaceous recombination where Rep acts as the target region. nent (betasatellite, alphasatellites; Mansoor et al.

Molecular characterization of Cotton leaf curl Multan virus and DNA-satellites complex associated enation leaf curl and yellow vein mosaic disease of hollyhock

“…The alphasatellites (H1D1, H2D1, H3D1) associated with hollyhock were identi ed in present study were closely related to the AEA infecting okra and hollyhock (Serfraz et al 2015) and cotton respectively (Siddiqui et al 2016). Which are similar feature of other alphastellites identi ed in many crops Venkataravanappa et al 2019a, b).…”

Molecular characterization of begomovirus–betasatellite–alphasatellite complex associated with okra enation leaf curl disease in Northern Sri Lanka

“…Earlier in India, it was reported that the OELCuD is associated with OELCuV and Okra enation leaf curl alphasatellite (Chandran et al 2013). Similar finding was made by Serfraz et al (2015) in Pakistan, where the OELCuV was Venkataravanappa et al (2011) found that two distinct betasatellites, namely Bhendi yellow vein mosaic betasatellite and Okra leaf curl betasatellite, were associated with the disease in India. The present study reports that a complex of OELCuV, BYVMB, and two distinct species of alphasatellites (OLCuA and BhYVMA) are associated with the disease in Sri Lanka.…”

Infectivity of Deinbollia mosaic virus, a novel weed-infecting begomovirus in East Africa

“…Recombination, mutation and pseudo-recombination are responsible for driving the evolution of begomoviruses [ 22 ]. Globally, eight centers of diversification of geminiviruses exist, and East Africa is believed to be a center of diversity for begomoviruses [ 23 ].…”