First Report of Cherry virus A in Prunus mume in China

Natural infections of Cherry virus A (CVA) have been reported in sweet (Prunus avium) and sour cherry (P. cerasus) from a number of European countries, North America, and Japan. CVA has been detected occasionally in other Prunus hosts such as peach, plum, and apricot (1). In the spring of 2007, samples from four Japanese apricot (Prunus mume) trees from the Jiangsu Province of China were analyzed by a polyvalent reverse transcriptase-PCR assay that amplifies a short region of the polymerase gene of viruses from several genera in the family Flexiviridae (2). Sequencing of the amplified products identified CVA in three samples. Two isolates (GenBank Accession Nos. EU730949 and EU730950) were closely related and highly homologous (97.5 to 99.3% identity) to noncherry isolates of CVA (GenBank Accession Nos AY792509 and DQ445275 to DQ445292). The third isolate (GenBank Accession No. EU730951) was approximately 90% identical to the other P. mume isolates and showed the highest identity (92.3%) to a cherry isolate (GenBank Accession No AF413923). CVA infection of the P. mume samples was confirmed by two CVA-specific primer pairs targeting genomic regions corresponding to the movement or coat protein genes. Since the samples showed mixed infections with Plum pox virus (PPV) or Asian Prunus virus 1 (APV1), potential CVA symptomatology could not be evaluated. To our knowledge, these results are the first identification of CVA in China and in P. mume, extending the geographical distribution and natural host range of this virus. Additional work is needed to evaluate whether CVA poses a threat to P. mume production or whether, as in other identified hosts, CVA is largely latent. References: (1) M. Barone et al. Plant Dis. 90:1459, 2006. (2) X. Foissac et al. Phytopathology 95:617, 2005.