VIEW ARTICLE

Natural Serological Strains of Tobacco Ringspot Virus. G. V. Gooding, Jr., Associate Professor, Department of Plant Pathology, North Carolina State University, Raleigh 27607. Phytopathology 60:708-713. Accepted for publication 20 November 1969. DOI: 10.1094/Phyto-60-708.

One hundred isolates of tobacco ringspot virus from burley and flue-cured tobacco areas of North Carolina were characterized serologically using the agar-gel double-diffusion technique. Four serological strains containing 88 isolates (strain NC-38), 7 isolates (strain NC-72), 4 isolates (strain NC-39) and 1 isolate (strain NC-87) were delineated on the basis of cross-reaction tests using antiserum for an isolate selected as the type of each strain. Each type isolate contained at least one specific antigenic site when reciprocal-absorption tests were conducted using all combinations of type isolates and their antisera. There was no correlation between isolates within a strain and the symptoms they caused in tobacco; i.e., some isolates of a strain caused severe symptoms; other isolates caused mild symptoms. No correlation was found between a strain and its geographic origin or the type of tobacco from which it was isolated. Nine isolates from outside N.C. were compared with the NC strains. Of these, seven were like NC-38; two were different.