1Advanced Centre of Hill Bioresources and Biotechnology, CSK Himachal Pradesh Krishi Vishvavidyalaya, Palampur-176 062.
2Dept. of Vegetable Science and Floriculture, College of Agriculture, CSK Himachal Pradesh Krishi Vishvavidyalaya, Palampur-176 062.
3Plant Virus Lab, Institute of Himalayan Bioresource Technology (CSIR), Palampur-176 061, 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.
Capsicum is one of the important commercial vegetable crops of Himachal Pradesh. Recent studies indicated that capsicum in Himachal Pradesh is affected by infection of Cucumber mosaic virus (CMV), Tomato spotted wilt virus (TSWV), potyvirus and geminiviruses. A total of fifty five samples of capsicum were tested through DAS-ELISA for the presence of major virus(es) out of which ten samples were found positive for CMV and two were found positive for potyvirus group indicating incidence of 18.18% and 3.36% respectively. In slot-blot hybridization, out of the fifty five samples tested, twelve were found positive for CMV, two for Tomato spotted wilt virus (TSWV), three for potyvirus and two for begomoviruses. Total RNA was isolated from the samples, used in RT-PCR and expected sized amplifications were obtained for CMV (~540 bp). The PCR amplified products of CMV were cloned and sequenced. The sequences were submitted to NCBI database and accession numbers (FM209497 and FM209498) were obtained for two different isolates of CMV. Phylogenetic analysis revealed that CMV isolates of capsicum were closely similar to each other and showed maximum similarity with Australian isolate (AF198103). On the basis of sequence identity and phylogenetic tree analysis, these two Indian isolates belong to subgroup II.
