1Department of Biosciences, Jamia Millia Islamia New Delhi-110025
2Advanced Center for Plant Virology, IARI, New Delhi-110012.
Abstracts of the papers presented at the International Conference of Indian Virological Society on “Emerging and Re-emerging viral Diseases of the Tropics and Subtropics” at Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi, India, December 11–14, 2007.
Banana is widely grown in the tropic and subtropic region. India being the largest producer of banana contributes 23% of the world's total production. Cucumber mosaic virus (CMV) is one of the important viruses infecting banana. The virus spreads mainly through infected plant material and insect vectors. In vitro expression strategy has been followed to produce polyclonal antibody for the detection of CMV infections in banana. Coat protein gene of CMV (Maharashtra isolate) has been amplified, cloned into pQE-30 vector and expressed in E. coli M15 cells. The recombinant coat protein was successfully purified and used for raising polyclonal antibodies in rabbit. Antisera reacted with the purified protein as well crud sap from banana samples infected with CMV in ouchterlony double diffusion test. Furthermore, immunocapture RT-PCR was also performed using polyclonal antibody raised against recombinant protein and CMV coat protein gene specific primers.
