First report of Chilli leaf curl virus affecting chilli in India

Abstract

Listen

Translate article

) is an important spice crop cultivated through-out India. Leaf curl disease of Chilli has emerged as a serious problem inthe Jodhpur district, the major chilli growing area of Rajasthan state. Dur-ing December 2004, very high disease incidence (up to 100% of plants)was observed in farmers’ fields in Narwa and Tinwari villages. The char-acteristic field symptoms were upward curling, puckering and reduced sizeof leaves. Severely affected plants were stunted and produced no fruit. Thevirus from field samples from Narwa village was transmitted by whitefly(Bemisia tabaci) to 50–100% of chilli test plants, which produced veinclearing, curling and stunting symptoms. Electron microscopic examina-tion of field samples revealed few, typical geminate particles. The presenceof a begomovirus was confirmed by PCR using the degenerate primersAVF28 5′-GCCCACATYGTC TTYCCNGT-3 ′ and AV29R 5′-GGCTTYCTRT ACATRGG-3 ′, which gave a ca.1·0 kb product. Cloning and sequencingof the PCR product yielded a 995 bp sequence (Acc. No. DQ445255). ABLAST search of GenBank revealed close similarity of the sequence withthe intergenic region and part of the replication initiator protein, AV1 andAV2 genes of Chilli leaf curl virus-[Pakistan: Multan] (ChiLCuV-[Pk:Mul];AF336806) reported from Pakistan (Shih et al., 2003).In India, Tomato leaf curl New Delhi virus (ToLCNDV) was recentlyshown to be associated with chilli leaf curl disease occurring in Lucknow(Khan et al., 2006). Two more Begomovirus species, Cotton leaf curlMultan virus (CLCuMV) (Hussain et al ., 2004) and Pepper yellow leaf curlIndonesia virus (PepYLCIDV) (Tsai et al ., 2006), have been reported to beassociated with chilli leaf curl in Pakistan and Indonesia respectively.Sequence analysis showed that the virus isolated from Jodhpur wasdistantly related (59·1-67·9 % identity) to CLCuMV, PepYLCIDV andToLCNDV. However, it shared 96·5% identity with ChiLCuV-[Pak:Mul].Given the close sequence identity with ChiLCuV-[Pk:Mul], the virusisolated from Jodhpur is considered to be ChiLCuV. This is the firstreport of ChiLCuV affecting chilli in India and the recent report of Khanet al. (2006) show that chilli leaf curl in India is caused by more than onebegomovirus.ReferencesHussain M, Mansoor S, Iram S, Zafar Y, Briddon RW, 2004. First report of