Tomato leaf curl geminivirus in Australia: occurrence, detection, sequence diversity and host range

Abstract

The occurrence of whitefly transmitted geminiviruses in Australia was studied using a mixed DNA probe capable of detecting a range of distinct geminiviruses. The only geminivirus species detected was Tomato leaf curl virus (TLCV), which is spread across a vast geographical region of far‐northern coastal Australia, an area inhabited by the Australasian‐Oceania biotype of Bemisia tabaci. The newly introduced silverleaf whitefly, B. tabaci biotype B, forms high population densities in the eastern coastal region of Queensland and is currently located approximately 150 km from the nearest known TLCV‐infected area. The viral host range appeared to be narrow and of 58 species of crop plants and weeds inoculated using the B biotype, only 11 became infected with the virus, including five that did not show foliar symptoms. A DNA fragment of 694 nt, including the complete C4 open reading frame (ORF), the overlapping N‐terminal part of the C1 ORF and the viral iterons involved in replication, was amplified from 11 TLCV field isolates and sequenced. Sequence analysis revealed an overall sequence variation of up to 14% in this region, as well as the presence of distinct viral iterons.