1Central Research Institute for Jute and allied Fibres, Barrackpore-700120, West Bengal.
2Department of Biochemistry, University of Calcutta, Kolkata.
3Department of Plant Pathology, Central Rice Research Institute, Cuttack.
*Department of Biochemistry; Dr. B.C. Guha Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, University of Calcutta, Kolkata.
Rice necrosis mosaic virus (RNMV), which was reported earlier to be geographically restricted to Japan, is also being observed to be prevalent in India too. The Indian isolate of RNMV, apart from causing disease on rice and other monocot plants, was found to promote growth and yield of phyllogenetically unrelated dicot plants like fibre crops through mechanical inoculation. The Indian isolate of RNMV could be purified with a modified procedure in an active state. The yield of the virus appeared to be around 750ug/100g of fresh weight. Artificial inoculation with such purified virus on healthy rice {cv. T(N)1} under controlled condition reduced the time of symptom expression with greater severity. The viral genome is composed of single stranded RNA as was observed upon different nuclease treatment of isolated nucleic acid from purified virus particle. A single major band of size around 27kD was observed in viral protein profile using 12% SDS-PAGE and that resembled the size of coat protein of Bymoviruses.
