Abstract
BackgroundTobamoviruses, including tomato brown rugose fruit virus (ToBRFV) on tomato and pepper, and cucumber green mottle mosaic virus (CGMMV) on cucumber and watermelon, have caused many disease outbreaks around the world in recent years. With seed-borne, mechanical transmission and resistant breaking traits, tobamoviruses pose serious threat to vegetable production worldwide. With the absence of a commercial resistant cultivar, growers are encouraged to take preventative measures to manage those highly contagious viral diseases. However, there is no information available on which disinfectants are effective to deactivate the virus infectivity on contaminated hands, tools and equipment for these emerging tobamoviruses. The purpose of this study was to evaluate a collection of 16 chemical disinfectants for their effectiveness against mechanical transmission of two emerging tobamoviruses, ToBRFV and CGMMV.MethodsBioassay was used to evaluate the efficacy of each disinfectant based on virus infectivity remaining in a prepared virus inoculum after three short exposure times (10 s, 30 s and 60 s) to the disinfectant and inoculated mechanically on three respective test plants (ToBRFV on tomato and CGMMV on watermelon). Percent infection of plants was measured through symptom observation on the test plants and the presence of the virus was confirmed through an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay with appropriate antibodies. Statistical analysis was performed using one-way ANOVA based on data collected from three independent experiments.ResultsThrough comparative analysis of percent infection of test plants, a similar trend of efficacy among 16 disinfectants was observed between the two pathosystems. Four common disinfectants with broad spectrum activities against two different tobamoviruses were identified. Those effective disinfectants with 90–100% efficacy against both tobamoviruses were 0.5% Lactoferrin, 2% Virocid, and 10% Clorox, plus 2% Virkon against CGMMV and 3% Virkon against ToBRFV. In addition, SP2700 generated a significant effect against CGMMV, but poorly against ToBRFV.ConclusionIdentification of common disinfectants against ToBRFV and CGMMV, two emerging tobamoviruses in two different pathosystems suggest their potential broader effects against other tobamoviruses or even other viruses.
Highlights
Tobamoviruses, including tomato brown rugose fruit virus (ToBRFV) on tomato and pepper, and cucumber green mottle mosaic virus (CGMMV) on cucumber and watermelon, have caused many disease outbreaks around the world in recent years
Efficacy of disinfectants against mechanical transmission of ToBRFV in tomato A total of 16 chemicals were initially screened in an effort to identify disinfectants that were most effective against mechanical transmission of ToBRFV
Through our study we have identified several promising disinfectants, including 0.5% and 2% Virocid, 10% Clorox, 0.5% Lactoferrin and 3% Virkon that were able to deactivate ToBRFV, causing less than 7.5% infectivity
Summary
Tobamoviruses, including tomato brown rugose fruit virus (ToBRFV) on tomato and pepper, and cucumber green mottle mosaic virus (CGMMV) on cucumber and watermelon, have caused many disease outbreaks around the world in recent years. With seed-borne, mechanical transmission and resistant breaking traits, tobamo‐ viruses pose serious threat to vegetable production worldwide. Tobamoviruses are single-stranded positive sense RNA viruses, represented by tobacco mosaic virus (TMV), which is one of the most important plant pathogens [2]. Based on their genome organization and host infection, viruses in the genus Tobamovirus are divided into three subgroups infecting Cucurbitaceae, Solanaceae, and Brassicaceae and Asteraceae species [3]).
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