First report of Catharanthus yellow mosaic virus infecting Duranta repens in Pakistan.

Abstract

Duranta repens (pigeon berry) is an ornamental shrub that, in Pakistan, frequently exhibits leaf curl symptoms that are typical of begomovirus infection (genus Begomovirus, family Geminiviridae). Leaf samples from two D. repens plants with mild leaf curl and from one apparently symptomless plant, were collected from areas around Islamabad during 2013. Total DNA was isolated from both types of samples by the CTAB method. Diagnostic PCR produced an amplification product of the expected size (ca. 750 bp) from the symptomatic sample only. An amplification product of ca. 2,800 bp was obtained by PCR with an abutting primer pair (BGAF/BGAR; Tahir et al., 2010) designed to amplify the complete genomes of monopartite begomoviruses or DNA A components of bipartite begomoviruses. The amplicon from one sample was cloned and its sequence (2752 nt) was submitted to GenBank (accession No. LK028570). The sequence from D. repens had the highest nucleotide identity (95%) with that of the begomovirus Catharanthus yellow mosaic virus (CYMV; HE580234). Attempts to identify a possible second component (DNA B and/or betasatellite) in the infected D. repens by PCR with universal betasatellite primers (Briddon et al., 2002) or DNA B primers (BGBF/BGBR; Tahir et al., 2010), were negative. Leaf curl disease of D. repens is thus associated with a monopartite begomovirus, CYMV, without a betasatellite, in agreement with Ilyas et al. (2013) who first isolated this virus from Catharanthus roseus and showed it to be monopartite and not associated with a betasatellite. Previously only the bipartite begomovirus Tomato leaf curl New Delhi had been found in D. repens in Pakistan. This is the first report of a CYMV infecting D. repens.