Plant Virus Laboratory and Biotechnology Unit, Division of Crop Protection, Central Research Institute for Jute and Allied Fibres, Barrackpore, Kolkata-700120, India.
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.
Eclipta prostrata L. commonly known as False Daisy and Bhringraj, belongs to the family Asteraceae, is a medicinally important common weed found throughout the Indian sub-continent and its leaf extract is considered as a powerful liver tonic, rejuvenative, and especially good for the hair. Frequently the plant is getting infected by a yellow vein disease and association of different begomoviruses have been reported from Pakistan and China. To identify the Begomovirus associated with this disease in India, the total DNA extracted from symptomatic leaves and subjected to PCR amplification using coat protein gene specific primers designed from coat protein of Bhendi yellow vein mosaic virus. A 0.77 kb fragment corresponding to the coat protein (CP) gene has been amplified. The amplicon was then cloned and sequenced (EU188920). Sequence analysis revealed that the coat protein gene of the Begomovirus associated with yellow vein disease of Eclipta in eastern India shared highest sequence identity both at nucleotide (95%) and amino acid (98%) level with Alternanthera yellow vein virus reported to be associated with similar disease of Eclipta from China (DQ375456). The present isolate shared only 63% and 64% sequence identity respectively with the Tomato leaf curl New Delhi virus (AJ889185) that was found to be associated with similar disease of Eclipta from Pakistan. In phylogenetic relationship the present isolate formed a cluster with two Alternanthera yellow vein virus strains from China and well separated from the Tomato leaf curl New Delhi virus. Study thus highlighted that how genomic variation of a virus eventhough produced similar types of symptoms in the same host takes place at different agro echological conditions and hence constitutes the first report of the association of Alternanthera yellow vein virus in yellow vein disease of Eclipta in eastern India.
