Plant Virus Laboratory and Biotechnology Unit, Division of Crop Protection, Central Research Institute for Jute and Allied Fibres, Barrackpore, Kolkata-700120, India.
Sida is a common weed which grows all over the world. Such plants are often found to be infected with whitefly-transmitted Begomoviruses and reported to be associated with symptoms like yellow vein, golden yellow vein and yellow mosaic from USA, china, Brazil and south India. Symptom of yellow vein of Sida, similar to that reported from south India, is also noticed from eastern part of India. With an aim to identify the associated Begomovirus and to study its variation from that reported from south India, total DNA from the symptomatic plants was isolated and the association of Begomovirus was confirmed by southern hybridization using a radio-labelled DNA-A probe to Mesta yellow vein mosaic virus (EF428256). Expected 0.77 kb and 1.3 kb PCR amplicons were obtained with the primers designed to the coat protein of Bhendi yellow vein mosaic virus and universal DNA â primers respectively from the DNA of symptomatic plants but not from the non-symptomatic one. Both the PCR products were then cloned and sequenced (EU184016, EU188921). Sequence of coat protein gene showed highest identity both at nucleotide (96.7%) and amino acid (99.2%) level with Kenaf leaf curl virus, reported from north India (EF620563) followed by Malvastrum yellow vein virus (90.4% and 95.3% respectively) reported from China (AJ457824). Interestingly, the coat protein gene of the present isolate showed relatively low sequence identity both at nucleotide (67.7%) and amino acid (44.1%) level with Sida yellow vein Madurai virus, reported from south India (NC_009354). Similarly, sequence of DNA â also showed only 45% sequence identity with that associated with yellow vein disease of sida from south India (NC_007213) but shared highest identity (82.1%) with DNA â associated with Luffa begomovirus (DQ020491) followed by Mesta yellow vein mosaic virus (EF614162), both reported from north India. The study thus revealed that the Begomovirus complex infecting Sida in eastern part of India is different from that reported from southern India and showed its closeness to different begomoviruses reported from north India.
