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Etiology

Purification and Properties of Sweet Potato Feathery Mottle Virus. J. W. Moyer, Departments of Plant Pathology and Entomology, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27607; G. G. Kennedy, Departments of Plant Pathology and Entomology, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27607. Phytopathology 68:998-1004. Accepted for publication 30 December 1977. Copyright © 1978 The American Phytopathological Society, 3340 Pilot Knob Road, St. Paul, MN 55121. All rights reserved.. DOI: 10.1094/Phyto-68-998.

An isolate of sweet potato feathery mottle virus was recovered from Georgia Red sweet potato plants exhibiting interveinal chlorotic spotting and vein mottling. The virus was readily sap-transmissible when diluted 10-fold in 0.05 M potassium phosphate buffer, pH 7.2. It was nonpersistently transmitted by Aphis gossypii, A. craccivora, Lipaphis erysimi, and Myzus persicae, but was not transmitted by Rhopalosiphum maidis or R. padi. Properties in Ipomoea nil sap were: thermal inactivation point 60-65 C, dilution end-point between 10^–3 and 10^–4, and it remained infectious in sap less than 12 hr. Twenty-seven plant species from seven families were inoculated but only eight Ipomoea spp. became infected. A purification procedure is described which results in 8-10 mg virus/kg infected tissue. The purified virus particles measured approximately 850 nm in length. Purified virus had a 260/280 ratio of 1.18. Antisera produced to a purified virus had a titer of 1:1,024 in microprecipitin tests and 1:16 in agar double-diffusion tests.