A simple method for detection of viral satellite RNAs in small plant tissue samples

A procedure is described that allows extraction and can estimate the total amount of single-stranded and double-stranded viral satellite RNAs and viral RNA present in a minimal amount of infected plant tissue, and is capable of distinguishing different cucumber mosaic viral and nepoviral satellites by polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis under semi-denaturing or fully-denaturing conditions.