Immunological characterization of micropropagated banana using DAS-ELISA to detect bunchy top disease

Banana bunchy top disease (BBTD) is a nano-viral banana disease, which has been reducing both vegetative and reproductive growth of banana. It is spreading with the passage of time but manageable, if detected at an earlier stage through any serological or molecular technique. For this, an economic protocol for ELISA has been established for both time and chemicals. During this study, double antibody sandwich-enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (DAS-ELISA) was used for detecting banana bunchy top nanovirus (BBTV) in the tissue culture regenerated banana plants produced through auxillary shoot-proliferation of shoot tip explants of banana (Musa acuminata L.) cv. ëGrand Naineí. A total of 350 banana plants were produced through micropropagation. Fifty-four randomly taken micropropagated plants were subjected to DAS-ELISA using polyclonal antibodies to detect BBTV. None of the micropropagated plants gave positive reaction with the antiserum of BBTV. Therefore, the immunological studies showed the absence of BBTV in the micropropagated plantlets.