Jatropha curcas L. is a major commercial biodiesel fuel crop grown on 98 million acres (39.66 million ha) in India. Severe mosaic disease accompanied by yellow spots was noticed on 15% of J. curcas growing in the experimental plots of NBRI, Lucknow, India, during October of 2006. Inoculations with sap from symptomatic plants resulted in systemic mosaic on three of seven J. curcas seedlings. Gel diffusion tests were performed with antiserum to Cucumber mosaic virus (CMV), Tobacco ringspot virus, and Chrysanthemum virus B (PVAS-242a, PVAS-157, and PVAS-349, respectively; ATCC, Manassas, VA). Leaf sap of infected plants reacted only with PVAS-242a, indicating the presence of CMV. Reverse transcription (RT)-PCR assays with CMV coat protein gene specific primers (Genbank Accession Nos. AM180922 and AM180923) and total nucleic acid extracted from symptomatic J. curcas leaf tissue yielded the expected ~650-bp amplicon, which was cloned and sequenced (GenBank Accession No. EF153739). BLAST analysis indicated 98 to 99% nucleotide identity with CMV isolates (GenBank Accession Nos. DQ914877, DQ640743, AF350450, AF281864, X89652, AF198622, DQ152254, DQ141675, and DQ028777). Phylogenetic analysis showed that the J. curcas isolate was more closely related to Indian isolates of CMV belonging to subgroup Ib. Literature surveys revealed records of Jatropha mosaic virus on J. gossypiifolia in Puerto Rico (1) and on J. curcas in India (2). To our knowledge, this is the first report of CMV on J. curcas.
References: (1) J. K. Brown et al. Arch. Virol. 146:1581, 2001. (2) D. S. A. Narayana et al. Curr. Sci. 91:584, 2006.
