Impact of Chemotherapy and Thermotherapy Treatments on the Presence of Potato Viruses PVY, PVX and PLRV in Tissue-Cultured Shoot Tip Meristem

Abstract

Potato tubers (Solanum tuberosum L.) is considered as one of the most essential vegetable crops worldwide, The most communal viruses attacking potato all over the world are potato leaf roll virus (PLRV), potato virus Y (PVY) and potato virus X (PVX). Our current study aimed to eradicate potato viruses PVY, PVX and PLRV through shoot tip meristem via tissue culture combined with thermotherapy and chemotherapy. Sprouts of potato cultivars ex. Spunta, Selana, Diamond and Cara were used as biological material for investigating their performance using shoot tip meristem. During multiplication stage, the resulted plantlets were subjected to ribavirin (50 mg/L), while the untreated plantlets served as control. In general, the control treatment (0.0 mg/L) provided the best results, while ribavirin (50 mg/L) gave reverse effect on the estimated vegetative parameters (shoot length (cm), number of leaves and number of shoots).  Detection of the presence and absence of PVY, PVX and PLRV using DAS-ELISA technique indicated that, thermotherapy and chemotherapy treatments for shoot tip meristem culturing minimized the occurrence percentage of PVX, PVY and PLRV in all tested potato cultivars compared to positive control.  The results of RT-PCR revealed that, the amplicons of amplified fragments and primed by PVX-, PVY- and PLRV-specific sense and antisense primers were appeared only in the positive control (lane 1 at ~750, 801 and 548 bp), respectively, while, no amplicons appeared in the rested treatments. In conclusion, shoot tip meristem followed by thermotherapy and chemotherapy treatments enhanced the growth of potato plantlets and suppressed potato viruses.