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Etiology

A New Type of Plant Virus Causing Striped Chlorosis of Mimosa. E. M. Martin, Department of Plant Pathology, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville 72701; K. S. Kim, Department of Plant Pathology, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville 72701. Phytopathology 77:935-940. Accepted for publication 10 December 1986. Copyright 1987 The American Phytopathological Society. DOI: 10.1094/Phyto-77-935.

Rod-shaped virus-like particles (VLPs) approximately 35 × 95 nm were consistently associated with a chlorotic leaf stripe symptom in mimosa leaves and were seed- and graft-transmissible. In thin-section electron microscopy, the particles, which were arranged tightly parallel to each other along their long axes in paracrystalline arrays, were associated with fibrillar and granular viroplasmic inclusions in the cytoplasm of infected cells. The granular inclusions structurally resembled those induced by caulimoviruses, a group of plant viruses containing double-stranded DNA as their genomic material. Bernhard’s regressive staining technique suggested that both the VLPs and granular inclusions found in mimosa contained DNA. No plant viruses having the particle morphology of VLPs of mimosa with a DNA genome have been reported previously.