First report of Tomato spotted wilt virus on tomato in Syria.

Abstract

During spring and early summer of 2007 and 2008, a survey was carried out to investigate the presence of Tomato spotted wilt virus (TSWV, genus Tospovirus, family Bunyaviridae) in 643 tomato samples (leaves and fruits) from grower fields (422 sam- ples from 68 fields) and five Agricultural Research Stations of GCSAR (221 samples), representing eight Syrian governorates. Samples were tested by DAS-ELISA (Clark and Adams, 1977) using a commercial kit (Bioreba, Switzerland). An overall 11% infection rate (72 of 643 samples) was found, the highest being in the governorate of Al-Qunaitara (41%), followed by Dar’a (22%), Damascus countryside (12%), Aleppo (3%) and Idleb (2%). No TSWV infection was recorded in any of the Agricultur- al Research Stations inspected and in governorates of Homs, Hama and Tartous. The presence of TSWV was confirmed by one-step RT-PCR analysis of a few selected samples using the Ac- cess System (Promega, USA), total RNA extracted with TRIzol LS (Invitrogen, USA) and primer pair 722/723 designed in the vi- ral nucleocapsid protein (NP) gene (Adkins and Rosskopf, 2002). The expected 620 bp DNA fragment was obtained from seven samples (four from Dar’a and three from Damascus countryside), as shown by electrophoresis on 1% agarose gel. To our knowl- edge, this is the first record of TSWV on tomato in Syria.