Poster: Diseases of Plants: New & Emerging Diseases
592-P
Detection and characterization of a novel potyvirus, Crinum mosaic virus, in ornamental Crinum.
R. JORDAN (1), A. Khawaja (1), M. Guaragna (1) (1) US National Arboretum, USDA-ARS, U.S.A.
Ornamental flower bulbs (including true bulbs, bulbils, corms, tubers and rhizomes) are increasingly important floriculture crops. Crinum is a large genus of herbaceous perennial flowering bulbs in the family Amaryllidaceae and most of the species are grown in the summer and have large, showy, fragrant flowers. Only two viruses have been reported to infect cultivated Crinum, both potyviruses - Nerine yellow stripe virus (NeYSV; in India) and Crinum mosaic virus (CriMV; in Australia, FL and HI). CriMV has not been characterized and infection has only been noted by the presence of potyvirus particles or characteristic potyviral inclusions. Leaf samples from several Crinum plants growing at the US National Arboretum exhibiting mosaic symptoms tested positive for the presence of Potyvirus in an RT-PCR screen using several universal potyvirus primers yielding the expected 1,600 bp product corresponding to the partial NIb gene, full-length coat protein (CP) gene and 3’UTR. The RT-PCR amplicon was cloned and sequenced and NCBI BLAST analysis of the consensus sequence revealed highest similarities, but not identity, with isolates of NeYSV. Pair-wise analyses of the 258 amino acid sequence of the predicted CP had 65-68% sequence identity with the NeYSV isolates from Crinum, Hymenocallis, Nerine, Stenomesson, and Vallota; whereas the seven NeYSV isolates share 85-98% CP identity. We propose to associate this unique potyvirus sequence with the aforementioned CriMV.