Capsicum annum, a new host of watermelon mosaic virus

Abstract

The occurrence of Watermelon mosaic virus (WMV) in sweet pepper (Capsicum annuum L.) in Kurdistan province, Iran was confirmed by reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and partial characterization of coat protein. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report of WMV infecting C. annuum, adding a new host to list of more than 170 species infected by this virus.Sweet pepper (Capsicum annuum L.) is an edible plant belongs to the family Solanaceae that is a valuable vegetable in Iran. Aphid transmitted viruses, Pepper mottle virus (PeMV), Cucumber mosaic virus (CMV), Zucchini yellow mosaic virus (ZYMV) and Potato virus Y (PVY) are known to affect sweet pepper. However, watermelon mosaic virus (WMV), a aphid transmitted virus that occurs worldwide is not known to infect sweet pepper. WMV has a wide host range and is able to infect cucurbits, some legumes, orchids and many weeds [2]. In the summer 2014, peppers with virus-like symptoms including mosaic, leafdistortion, mottling, stunting and yellowing were observed in the Kurdistan province of Iran. Twelve symptomatic pepper samples were collected and tested for the presence of three viruses including CMV, WMV and ZYMV.Total RNA was extracted from symptomatic leaves as described by [4] and subjected to random primed cDNA synthesis using the HyperScript TM kit (GeneAll, Seoul, Korea) according to the manufacturer's protocol. PCR was done using specific primer pair CMV (CPf/CPr) [5] and a *867 bp expected fragment was amplified from one sample (Pe1). Attempts to detect the ZYMV using a primer pair ZYMV-F(?)/ZYMV-R(-) [6] was unsuccessful. Whereas, a *657 bp expected amplification for WMV with another primer pair WMV-F(?)/WMV-R(-) [6] was detected from three samples (Pe1, Pe8 and Pe18). No DNA fragment was earned from non-symptomatic plant (Fig. 1b). WMV was detected of samples with leaf-distortion and mosaic (Fig. 1a). Nine samples did not result in amplification of any DNA fragment and probably these plants were infected with the other viruses, which incite similar symptoms. Since the WMV was not previously reported from Capsicum annuum in worldwide, to confirm the presence of WMV, PCR product from one isolate of WMV (Pe18) was cloned using pTG19 Vector (SinaClon, Iran) and sequenced. The initial BLAST between new isolate Pe18 (GenBank accession no. KP751208) and other Iranian isolates showed the range of nucleotide sequence identity was between 93 and 98 % and amino acid identity range was between 97 and 99 %. Nucleotide sequence identity between our isolate with non-Iranian isolates retrieved from GenBank ranged between 92 and 98 %. In addition, amino acid identity range was between 96 and 99 %.Previous studies have shown that WMV isolates are phylogenetically classified into three main genogroups called classical (Cl), group-2 (G-2) and emerging group (Em) with four subclades, Em1, Em2, Em3 and Em4 [2].Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article

Cucumber mosaic virus and turnip mosaic virus occurrence in garlic mustard in Ukraine

“…In addition, the plants have also been tested for TCV and TYMV, common on garlic mustard in Europe. Although watermelon mosaic virus II (WMV II, Potyviridae; Potyvirus) has not been reported to infect garlic mustard, samples were also tested for this virus, given that WMV II has a wide range of host plants, including more than 170 plant species from 27 different families (Hajizadeh and Mohammadi 2016), and is widely distributed in various crops growing in Ukraine (Shevchenko et al 2021).…”