Serological and molecular detection and prevalence of <i>Cucurbit aphid-borne yellows virus</i> in the Sistan region, Iran

Abstract

During the 2009 growing seasons, virus-like symptoms were noticed on cucurbit crops (melons (Cucumis melo L.) and watermelons [Citrullus lanatus (Thunb.) Matsum and Nakai)] grown in the Sistan region. The symptoms were widespread and included initial chlorotic lesions followed by yellowing of whole leaves and thickening of older leaves. 100 melon samples from symptomatic plants from 32 melon fields were collected for virus detection during 2009 and 2010. In a preliminary serological study, extracts of diseased leaves did not react with antisera to viruses reported from area, namely Cucumber mosaic virus, Watermelon mosaic virus-2 and Zucchini yellow mosaic virus. During the entire survey, CABYV was detected by double-antibody sandwich enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (DAS-ELISA) in all samples. Analysis of these samples were done with reverse transcription-polymerase chain reactions with a pair of primers designed to amplify the coat protein region of CABYV which resulted in the expected product (approximately 479 bp), confirming that all melon samples were infected by CABYV. The high incidence of CABYV in infections suggests that this virus may well become an important threat for cucurbit crops in the Sistan region.

Keywords: Yellowing disease, melon virus, loss, incidence, double antibody sandwich-enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (DAS-ELISA), reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR)