High-sensitivity express immunochromatographic method for detection of plant infection by tobacco mosaic virus

A highly sensitive express immunochromatography method for molecular diagnosis of plant virus infections was elaborated on the example of a model object - tobacco mosaic virus (TMV). The analysis time does not exceed 5 min, and the lower limit of TMV detection in non-clarified leaf extract (2-4 ng/ml) is comparable with the sensitivity of the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay of the virus. A single measurement requires 0.1-0.2 ml tested solution (extract from 10-20 mg of leaf material). The sensitivity of TMV determination in the leaf tissue extract was increased by more than one order of magnitude using signal enhancement by silver and is 0.1 ng/ml. In this case, analysis time did not exceed 25 min. The simplicity of this method makes it especially convenient in express diagnosis of numerous analyzed specimens. The prototype of a diagnostic kit for serial analyses of plant viral infections both in laboratory and field conditions was elaborated.