First Report of Cucumber mosaic virus Subgroup II Infecting Lycopersicon esculentum in India

During a survey in January 2006 near Salem in Tamil Nadu (south India), Cucumber mosaic virus was observed infecting tomatoes with an incidence of more than 70%. Plants exhibiting severe mosaic, leaf puckering, and stunted growth were collected, and the virus was identified using diagnostic hosts, evaluation of physical properties of the virus, compound enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) (ELISA Lab, Washington State University, Prosser), reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), and restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis (DSMZ, S. Winter, Germany). To determine the specific CMV subgroup, total RNA was extracted from 50 infected leaf samples using the RNeasy plant RNA isolation kit (Qiagen, Hilden, Germany) and tested for the presence of the complete CMV coat protein gene using specific primers as described by Rizos et al. (1). A fragment of the coat protein was amplified and subsequently digested with MspI to reveal a pattern of two fragments (336 and 538 bp), indicating CMV subgroup II. No evidence of mixed infection with CMV subgroup I was obtained when CMV isolates representing subgroups I (PV-0419) and II (PV-0420), available at the DSMZ Plant Virus Collection, were used as controls. Only CMV subgroup I has been found to predominantly infect tomato in the Indian subcontinent, although Verma et al. (2) identified CMV subgroup II infecting Pelargonium spp., an ornamental plant. To our knowledge, this is the first report of CMV subgroup II infecting tomato crops in India. References: (1) H. Rizos et al. J. Gen. Virol. 73:2099, 1992. (2) N. Verma et al. J. Biol. Sci. 31:47, 2006.