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Updated: Feb 5, 2026

Testing the Physiological Barriers to Viral Transmission in Aphids Using Microinjection
Published on: May 14, 2008
Bottlenecks and complementation in the aphid transmission of citrus tristeza virus populations
S J Harper1, S J Cowell2, W O Dawson2
1Department of Plant Pathology, Washington State University, Prosser, WA, USA. scott.harper@wsu.edu.
Abstract:
Aphid transmission is a major factor in the formation of citrus tristeza virus (CTV) populations. Here, we examined the effect of population interaction on aphid transmissibility of different CTV genotypes. We found that there was no correlation between the proportion of viral genotypes in the source population and what was transmitted. We next examined the transmission of a poorly transmitted infectious cDNA clone (T36) in mixture with other CTV genotypes. T36 transmission increased from 0.5% alone, to up to 35.7%, depending on the coinfecting genotype. These results suggest that interaction between CTV genotypes affects the transmission of this virus.
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