1Div. of Plant Pathology, Sugarcane Research Station, Kurnaghat-273 008, U.P., India.
2Division of Plant Pathology, Sugarcane Breeding Institute,Coimbatore-641 007, T.N., India.
3Plant Virology, National Botanical Research Institute, Rana Pratap Marg, Lucknow 226 001, India.
4Dept of Botany, Dean Dayal Upadhya Gorakhpur University, Gorakhpur-273 009, U.P. India.
5U.P. Council of Sugarcane Research, Shah-jahanpur-242 001, India.
Abstracts of the papers presented at the XVIII National Conference of Indian Virological Society at Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh, India, December 11–13, 2008.
The thirty sugarcane leaf samples exhibiting midrib yellowing symptoms from nine sugarcane growing states of India (Maharashtra, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana and Andhra Pradesh) of India were characterized through RT-PCR assays with specific designed primer for Sugarcane yellow leaf virus. (SCYLV) was identified by RT-PCR in all the thirty test sugarcane isolates. The expected ~610 kbp SCYLV fragment was amplified by RT-PCR with the SCYLV-615F (ATGAATACGGGCGCTAACCGYYCAC) and SCYLV-615R (GTGTTGGGGRAGCGTCGCYTACC) primer. Out of thirty isolates, thirteen SCYLV isolates were further cloned and sequenced and checked for phylogenetic relationships. BLAST search analysis of the CP sequence data revealed highest 99 per cent identities with isolates of SCYLV available in GenBank database from all over the world. The maximum sequence identity of all the Indian SCYLV isolates belonged to Cuba isolate of SCYLV. This strongly established that Indian SCYLV genome belongs to CUB genotype However, comparison of coat protein sequence analysis of the 13 tested Indian SCYLV isolates among themselves confirmed that they clustered into eight different groups. This shows the wide diversity among the Indian SYLV isolates. Our results also confirmed the widespread occurrence of SCYLV all over the sugarcane growing states of India.
