1Central Potato Research Institute, Shimla-171001.
2Central Potato Research Institute Campus, Modipuram-250011.
3Plant Virology Unit, Division of Plant Pathology, Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi-110 012.
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.
Recently an outbreak of Potato apical leaf curl virus (PALCV) caused by a whitefly-transmitted geminivirus has been observed to be a serious threat to the production of quality seed potato in Northern India. During field inspection a high incidence of virus causing chlorotic blotching, leaf crinkling, apical leaf curling and stunting of plant was observed. The leaf samples of plants showing typical apical leaf curl symptoms were collected during November-December, 2004 from different CPRI stations i.e. Modipuram, Jalandhar, Shimla (poly house) and from State Government Seed Farm. The samples were tested by DASELISA against five insect transmitted viruses PVM, PVY, PVA, PLRV and PALCV (polyclonal IgG against African cassava mosaic virus and monoclonal enzyme conjugate against TYLCV). The geminivirus, PALCV, was also detected by nucleic acid spot hybridization (NASH) technique. Out of 25 samples tested by DAS-ELISA only four samples proved positive to PVM and six to geminivirus (PALCV), whereas all the samples were found negative to PVA, PVY and PLRV. In case of NASH against coat-protein gene specific probe to geminivirus, in addition to six samples found positive in ELISA, four more samples were found positive, indicating higher sensitivity of NASH than the serological method. Both these techniques are useful and can be used simultaneously for detection of low concentration of the potato viruses for seed production.
