Abstract
BackgroundGeminiviruses infect a wide range of plant species including Jatropha and cassava both belonging to family Euphorbiaceae. Cassava is traditionally an important food crop in Sub - Saharan countries, while Jatropha is considered as valuable biofuel plant with great perspectives in the future.ResultsA total of 127 Jatropha samples from Ethiopia and Kenya and 124 cassava samples from Kenya were tested by Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA) for RNA viruses and polymerase chain reaction for geminiviruses. Jatropha samples from 4 different districts in Kenya and Ethiopia (analyzed by ELISA) were negative for all three RNA viruses tested: Cassava brown streak virus (CBSV), Cassava common mosaic virus, Cucumber mosaic virus, Three cassava samples from Busia district (Kenya) contained CBSV. Efforts to develop diagnostic approaches allowing reliable pathogen detection in Jatropha, involved the amplification and sequencing of the entire DNA A molecules of 40 Kenyan isolates belonging to African cassava mosaic virus (ACMV) and East African cassava mosaic virus - Uganda. This information enabled the design of novel primers to address different questions: a) primers amplifying longer sequences led to a phylogenetic tree of isolates, allowing some predictions on the evolutionary aspects of Begomoviruses in Jatrophia; b) primers amplifying shorter sequences represent a reliable diagnostic tool. This is the first report of the two Begomoviruses in J. curcas. Two cassava samples were co - infected with cassava mosaic geminivirus and CBSV. A Defective DNA A of ACMV was found for the first time in Jatropha.ConclusionCassava geminiviruses occurring in Jatropha might be spread wider than anticipated. If not taken care of, this virus infection might negatively impact large scale plantations for biofuel production. Being hosts for similar pathogens, the planting vicinity of the two crop plants needs to be handled carefully.
Highlights
Geminiviruses are a group of plant viruses that contain circular single stranded DNA genomes encapsidated in small twinned icosahedral capsids [1]
Virus detection by Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA) The Jatropha samples did not contain any of the three RNA viruses tested: Cassava brown streak virus (CBSV), Cucumber mosaic virus (CMV) and Cassava common mosaic virus (CsCMV) when analyzed by ELISA
First reports on geminivirus infections on J. curcas indicated the occurrence of Jatropha curcas virus closely related to Cassava mosaic virus in India, reaching a disease incidence from 25 to 47% [30,42,43]
Summary
Geminiviruses are a group of plant viruses that contain circular single stranded (ss) DNA genomes encapsidated in small twinned icosahedral capsids [1] They infect a wide range of plant species and are responsible for considerable crop losses [2]. DNA B encodes the movement protein (BC1/MP) and a nuclear shuttle protein (BV1/ NSP) required for cell - to - cell and long distance spread of virus in host plant [1]. Both DNAs contain a 200-250 bp region of high sequence homology known as the common region which is a part of a large intergenic region (IR) that contains the origin of replication [4]. Cassava is traditionally an important food crop in Sub - Saharan countries, while Jatropha is considered as valuable biofuel plant with great perspectives in the future
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