1Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore-641003.
2Mahyco Research Foundation, Hyderabad.
Abstracts of Research Papers Presented during the National Symposium of Indian Virological Society at Unit of Plant Virology, Division of Plant Pathology, Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi-110 012, October 14–1.
Tomato leaf curl geminivirus cause significant yield losses on tomatoes (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.) in Tamil Nadu. To identify the geminivirus infecting tomatoes in Tamil Nadu, 10 tomato samples from commercial tomato fields in three districts were examined for the presence of geminivirus infection. All the samples exhibited symptoms of leaf curl disease showing deformed leaflets, curling of margins, puckering of leaflets, reduced leaf sized accompanied by short internodes resulting in crowding of leaves near the apical portions. Leaf samples were collected and total DNA was isolated by Cetyl trimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) method and the genomic fragments of ToLCV DNA molecule was amplified using Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and IC-PCR with degenerate primers (PA and PB). The procedure was also used to amplify ToLCV DNA from nucleic acid extracts of individual whitely and a group of five whiteflies (Bemisia tabaci) fed on ToLCV infected tomato. The primers amplified a product of expected size of 560 bp in both the infected tomato samples and viruliferous whiteflies.
