1NRC for Banana, Tiruchirapalli, T.N.
2ACPV, IARI, New Delhi.
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.
Banana bunchy top is an economically important viral disease of banana in India. This virus has spread to all banana-growing regions in India after it was introduced from Sri Lanka in 1943. The highly priced, flavoured hill banana cultivar Virupakshi is in the verge of extinction due to this virus in lower Palany and Sirumalai hills in Tamil Nadu. Due to long existence of this virus in banana, many symptomatically distinguishable isolates have been occurring in India. The detection of virus by PCR technique has failed to detect some virus isolates. Sometimes even in symptomatic samples, the virus concentration is too less and PCR fails to detect them. In this investigation polyclonal antiserum raised for BBTV hill banana isolate has been used to trap the virus in PCR tubes, incubated overnight and then PCR was performed for detection. The reaction consisted an initial denaturation at 94°C for 4 min, followed by 30 cycles each with 1 min at 94°C, 1 min at 49°C and extension for 2 min at 72°C. The final extension was for 10 min at 72°C. The PCR amplified products was run in 1per cent agarose gel electrophoresis and the bands were visualized and photographed in image analyzer. Use of Immunocapture PCR in detecting banana viruses is discussed in detail.
