Vegetos

Abstract

Chilli plants in the farmers’ fields in Tamil Nadu showing symptoms of concentric chlorotic and necrotic rings on the leaves were found infected with a Tospovirus through RT- PCR by using Tospovirus degenerate primer (gL3637/F and gL4435C). From the BLAST result the virus associated with the disease is identified as Capsicum chlorosis virus (CaCV). Infected samples collected from Coimbatore were amplified using newly designed primer pair (GKCaCVCPF1/R1) corresponding to the nucleocapsid region of the CaCV for further confirmation. In the sequence analysis, complete nucleocapsid protein region shared a nucleotide and amino acid identity of 99.1% and 100% with the PB4 and PB1 isolates of CaCV from India respectively. In the phylogenetic analysis, this isolate grouped with the CaCV isolates from Aurangabad and Tamil Nadu, India than with isolates from other countries. About fifteen hosts from different families were inoculated through sap, of which nine hosts produce local lesion and four showed systemic symptoms. The positive reaction of extract from these plants in DAS- ELISA (double antibody sandwich ELISA) against the nucleocapsid protein of CaCV (DSMZ, Germany), confirmed the presence of CaCV in infected chilli plants in Tamil Nadu.