Archivio Journal of Plant Pathology

Abstract:

A 2,452 nucleotide segment of Apple stem pitting virus (ASPV) genome of an Indian isolate (accession No. FN433599), encoding the triple gene block (TGB) and the coat protein (CP) genes, was amplified, cloned, sequenced and compared with the homologous genomic region of other ASPV isolates available in GenBank. CP identity between the Indian isolate and isolates from China (accession No. FJ619185) and Poland (accession No. AF491931) was 83% and 82%, respectively. It was also observed that the 5’ region of the CP gene of the Indian isolate showed great variability in comparison to European isolates, whereas the CP 3’ end was more conserved. Recombination analysis showed that the Chinese and Indian isolates are recombinants. Disease incidence, as shown by ELISA assays of infected pome fruit tissues, was 36.7%. Considering the criteria for strain demarcation, it is concluded that the Indian ASPV is a strain of already described isolates of this virus.