Central Institute of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants, P.O. CIMAP, Lucknow-226015.
Abstracts of the papers presented at the 16th Annual Convention and International Symposium of Indian Virological Society on “Management of Vector-Borne Viruses” at International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), Patancheru-502324, Hyderabad, India, February 7–10, 2006.
Hyoscyamus muticus L., a member of family Solanaceae and commonly known as Egyptian henbane, is cultivated in different parts of the world as an ideal raw material for hyoscyamine and hyoscine alkaloids. These alkaloids are used in the control of gripping pain in intestinal disorders, paralysis agitants, cough, asthma etc. A severe mosaic, puckering of leaves and poor stunted growth was noticed on naturally infected H. muticus plants in the experimental fields of CIMAP, Lucknow, during the months of April and May. The disease was fairly wide spread (approx. 35%). Associated virus was mechanically transmitted and exhibited moderate host range. Present virus isolate was transmitted in a non-persistent manner by aphids and observed as polyhedral virus particle of 28 nm in diameter with a clear central core under TEM. Virus isolate showed a close relationship with CMV-S and CMV-A strains in double diffusion serological test. SDS-PAGE and Western blot analysis revealed the presence of one major band of 26K and a minor band of 54K with CMV-S. In agarose gel electrophoresis of RNA preparations, 3 distinct bands were observed corresponding to RNA1 plus RNA2, RNA3, and RNA4, respectively. On the basis of these findings, the associated virus isolate was characterized as an Indian isolate of CMV infecting Epyptian henbane.
