Journal of Plant Pathology Archive

Abstract:

During a spring 2012 survey, three malva (Malva neglecta Wallr.) leaf samples showing virus-like symptoms were collected in or around vegetable fields in the Khuzestan province of Iran. Leaf samples were tested for the presence of potyviruses by indirect (ELISA using the “poty group test” kit (Bioreba, Switzerland). One of the three samples, collected from an eggplant field, strongly reacted to the “poty group” antibodies. Mosaic and vein yellowing symptoms were associated with the infection. Viral infection was confirmed by RT-PCR using previously described universal primers to amplify a region in the NIb gene of potyviruses (Zheng et al., 2010). The RT-PCR resulted in the amplification of an expected fragment of ca. 0.4 kb in size. The nucleotide sequence of the amplified DNA fragment was determined and deposited in GenBank as accession No. KF017608. BLAST analysis showed the highest nucleotide sequence identity (88%) of isolate Kz-W331 to the corresponding region of the tomato isolate of Malva vein clearing virus (MVCV, accession No. FJ561293). Based on these results, the malva-infecting potyvirus could be a strain of MVCV, however, further studies are necessary to confirm this hypothesis. M. neglecta has been previously reported as a reservoir host for a number of plant viruses in Iran (Massumi et al., 2010) but this is the first report of a potyvirus infection of M. neglecta in the mid-Eurasia of Iran.