Abstract
Geminiviruses infect many crop plants, and are limiting factors for vegetable crop production. Begomoviruses (Geminiviridae) cause typical symptoms of leaf curling and puckering in nightshade (Solanum nigrum), a seasonal weed in Bihar, India. To investigate if nightshade was an intermediate host for begomovirus, virus DNA was extracted and characterized. The DNA-A of the virus yielded 2737 nt and DNA-B yielded 2706 nt. The intergenic region (IR) showed a conserved nonanucleotide sequence that potentially forms a stem-loop structure. The genomic sequence of DNA-A shared 94% identity with that of Tomato leaf curl New Delhi virus (ToLCNDV)-ivy gourd isolate. However, the sequence of DNA-B showed 95% identity with a bitter gourd isolate. PCR-based detection revealed the presence ToLCNDV in bottle gourd, pumpkin, sponge gourd, and bitter gourd. The IR sequences of the viruses isolated from these cucurbits and tomato were 100% identical. Whitefly-mediated transmission of the virus to cucurbits and tomato from nightshade was also demonstrated. These results indicate that nightshade may act as reservoir of ToLCNDV, and is involved in developing epidemics in cucurbit species. The strain of ToLCNDV has probably adapted from solanaceous to cucurbitaceous hosts. This is the first report of ToLCNDV infecting nightshade in India, highlighting this virus as a possible cause of disease epidemics in economically important cucurbits.
Highlights
Weed plants possess ecological adaptability, and are found throughout the world
The present study investigated the causal virus of nightshade leaf distortions, and explored the possibility of host shift between two major families of vegetable crops
The PCR amplification using the whitefly-transmitted geminivirus specific primer Deng541F/540R to detect the presence of virus DNA provided an amplified fragment of ≈530 bp in 16 out of 23 nightshade DNA samples
Summary
Weed plants possess ecological adaptability, and are found throughout the world. They are sources and reservoirs of viruses infecting many economicallyMohammad Ansar et alii important crops. Weed plants possess ecological adaptability, and are found throughout the world. They are sources and reservoirs of viruses infecting many economically. Weeds are alternative hosts, where economically important pathogens can survive between crop cycles (Mubin et al, 2010; Papayiannis et al, 2011; Wyant et al, 2011; Jyothsna et al, 2013). Whitefly-transmitted geminiviruses (Begomovirus; Geminiviridae) are known to infect economically important crops as well as weed hosts (Seal et al, 2006; Mubin et al, 2009; Ansar et al, 2019; Agnihotri et al, 2019). Tomato leaf curl New Delhi virus (ToLCNDV) is an important bipartite geminivirus in Begomovirus, which infects approx. Alternative hosts of ToLCNDV were include Ecballium elaterium, Datura stramonium, Sonchus oleraceus, and Solanum nigrum (Miguel et al, 2019)
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