IDENTIFICATION OF A NEW TRICHOVIRUS IN SOME FRUIT TREES INFECTED BY APPLE CHLOROTIC LEAF SPOT VIRUS (ACLSV)

ACLSV has been reported to be responsible for highly different symptomatologies in Prunus species and these various symptom types were generally thought to be related to the expression of distinct and stable ACLSV strains or to result from specific virus strain/host genotype interactions.
A representative collection of stone-fruit isolates of ACLSV from southern Italy (University of Naples) and from a number of other countries (INRA of Bordeaux and Ctifl, Centre de Lanxade) was examined to study the cause of these very different symptomatologies.
In an attempt to characterize severe isolates of ACLSV, a degenerate-primers nested RT-PCR technique previously developed (PDO-PCR, Foissac et al., 2001) for the polyvalent detection of viruses belonging to the Fovea-, Tricho- and Capillovirus genera was used.
Surprisingly, this technique revealed the presence, in some plant accessions, of a new virus belonging to the Trichovirus genus, which was systematically found in mixed infection with ACLSV. The availability of nucleotide sequence information has allowed the design of specific nested RT-PCR primers which have been used to study the variability of the new agent, which appears to be quite large.
Further work is clearly needed to understand the distribution of this new agent and its possible contribution to symptomatologies previously associated with ACLSV isolates.

XIX International Symposium on Virus and Virus-like Diseases of Temperate Fruit Crops – Fruit Tree Diseases

D. Liberti, A. Ragozzino, P. Gentit, A. Marais, L. Svanella-Dumas, T. Candresse

PDO-nested RT-PCR, Trichovirus, ACLSV

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2004.657.8