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Etiology

A New Tobamovirus from Passiflora edulis in Peru. C. E. Fribourg, Departamento de Fitopatología, Universidad Nacional Agraria, Lima, Peru; R. Koenig, and D. E. Lesemann. Institut für Viruskrankheiten der Pflanzen, Biologische Bundesanstalt, D33 Braunschweig, W. Germany. Phytopathology 77:486-491. Accepted for publication 17 June 1986. Copyright 1987 The American Phytopathological Society. DOI: 10.1094/Phyto-77-486.

A virus with particles typical of a tobamovirus was isolated from mosaic diseased plants of Passiflora edulis. The virus, for which the name maracuja mosaic virus is proposed, produced systemic infections only in P. edulis and Nicotiana benthamiana. Local lesions were produced in 25 other species from nine different families. The virus had particles 304 nm long that, in infected cells, formed platelike aggregates with a thickness equal to one virion’s length. Granular cytoplasmic inclusions were consistently associated with infections. In sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, purified virus preparations yielded two protein bands with molecular weights of 17.4 and 15.9 × 10³. The more rapidly moving protein apparently was not an in situ degradation product. The virus showed only distant serological relationships to other tobamoviruses in the slide-precipitin test, indirect enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, and immunoelectron microscopy. Serological relationships with other tobamoviruses were readily detectable by electroblot immunoassay.