Abstract
A sensitive method was used to detect bamboo mosaic virus (BaMV) and its associated satellite RNA (satBaMV) by 32P‐ and digoxigenin (Dig)‐labelled probes synthesized from cDNA clones of BaMV genomic (L probe) and satBaMV (S probe) RNA. Both the 32P‐ and Dig‐labelled L and S probes could detect as little as 490 pg of BaMV viral RNA by slot‐ and dot‐blot hybridization. In infected leaf extracts, 32P‐labelled L and S probes detected virus at 25‐fold higher dilutions than Dig‐labelled probes, which were also successfully used to detect BaMV infection in plants derived from meristem‐tip culture. However, immunoassays failed to detect BaMV in meristem culture. By dot‐blot hybridization assays, 25% of the seedlings were shown to be virus‐free. These results suggest that a highly sensitive method for the detection of BaMV infection is required for the establishment of BaMV‐free cultures. Meristem‐tip culture also provides an efficient method for obtaining virus‐free bamboo plants.
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