Plant Virus Laboratory and Biotechnology Unit, Division of Crop Protection, Central Research Institute for Jute and Allied Fibres, Barrackpore, Kolkata-700120, India.
Clerodendron sp. (family Verbenaceae), a garden hedge plant, have been used in Indian and Chinese traditional medicine for treating fever, cough, skin rashes and boils. A yellow mosaic disease of this plant has been reported from northern India and revealed the association of a Begomovirus with the disease. Similar type of bright yellow mosaic symptom in this species has also been observed from eastern part of the country. With an aim to identify the associated Begomovirus and to study its variability from north Indian isolate, total nucleic acid was obtained from the leaves and an expected 750bp PCR amplicon was obtained with the primers designed to the coat protein of Bhendi yellow vein mosaic virus from the DNA of symptomatic plants only. The PCR product was then cloned and sequenced (EU184015). Sequence analysis revealed that the coat protein gene of the associated Begomovirus of this east Indian isolate showed only 76% sequence identity with that of North Indian isolate (AY950580) but shared 92.0% nucleotide sequence identity with Acalypha yellow mosaic virus reported from north India (DQ515968) followed by Sri Lankan cassava mosaic virus (85%) (AJ579307) and Indian cassava mosaic virus (84%) (AF423180). In phylogenetic analysis this east Indian isolate formed a cluster with Acalypha yellow mosaic virus and separated out distinctly from the north Indian isolate. The present investigation thus indicated that the associated Begomovirus isolate with the disease in eastern India is distinct from that reported from northern India.
