Techniques for Detection and Diagnosis of Plant Viruses: A Review

Plant viruses are famed for serious economic losses to most of the agricultural and horticultural crops all around the world. The losses caused by plant viruses are estimated to be several billion bucks per year and are therefore a major threat to global crop production and food security. Traditional diagnostic methods based on biological and physical properties of virus such as appearance of symptoms, bioassay on indicator plants, vector borne and virus particle morphology by electron microscopy are cumbersome, time-consuming and expensive. Recognition of disease based on the symptoms indicated by virus affected plants, can invariably be the first process in several cases, however it’s confusing additionally as a result of the symptoms are changeable and depends on several factors like abiotic conditions. There are several sensitive and effective diagnostic methods developed during the last four decades based on virus protein e.g., immunosorbent electron microscopy (ISEM), enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and nucleic acid e.g., nucleic acid hybridization, isothermal and thermostable PCRs, for plant virus detection, each having its own advantage and disadvantage. This review provides an update on the progress made on the techniques that are useful for early, sensitive, accurate and reliable detection and diagnosis of plant viruses.