FIRST REPORT OF LITTLE CHERRY VIRUS 1 IN TURKEY

Abstract

Little cherry (LChD) is a serious virus disease of sweet (Prunus avium), sour (P. cerasus) cherry and several ornamental cherry trees. Little cherry virus 2 (LChV-2), a species of the genus Ampelovirus, and Little cherry virus 1 (LChV-1), an unassigned species in the family Closteroviridae, are associated with LChD. Symptoms shown by infected trees consist of small, pale-colored fruits with reduced sweetness and discolourations of the interveinal areas of the upper leaf surface that turn red-violet or become bronze coloured, while the midrib and the main veins remain green. In July-August 2007-2008 bronzed leaves were observed on the upper shoots of fruitless sweet cherry trees in an orchard located in Osmaniye (Turkey). Out of season flowering was also observed in October 2008, with flowers exhibiting pink petals and bronze sepals. Flowers were collected from seven cherry trees of cv. Napoleon and leaves of suckers from Prunus mahaleb, on which cv. Napoleon was grafted. Total nucleic acids from these samples were extracted as described (Foissac et al., 2001) and used as template for reverse transcription. PCR assays were performed using primer sets specific for LChV-1 and LChV-2, respectively (Rott and Jelkmann, 2001). Whereas all samples were negative for LChV-2, two of them (one cherry cv. Napoleon and the P. mahaleb) amplified the expected 419 bp fragment of LChV-1. The PCR product amplified from P. mahaleb was sequenced showing 89% identity at the nucleotide level with two LChV-1 isolates (GenBank accession Nos. Y10237 and X93351). To our knowledge, this is the first report of LChV-1 in Turkey.