First Report of a Bean-Infecting Begomovirus from Macroptilium lathyroides in Puerto Rico That Is Distinct from Bean...

Bean golden mosaic begomovirus (BGMV) was long suspected to cause bright yellow mosaic symptoms in Macroptilium lathyroides (L.), a weed common to Puerto Rico. M. lathyroides plants exhibiting bright yellow mosaic symptoms were collected from Puerto Rico during 1994 to 1999, and the biotic and molecular characteristics of the suspect begomovirus were determined. Symptoms in M. lathyroides, indistinguishable from those observed in field-infected plants, were reproducible by whitefly transmission (Bemisia tabaci type B) and biolistic inoculation of leaf extracts (1). In bean, Phaseolus vulgaris (L.) 'Topcrop,' the M. lathyroides virus caused green-yellow mosaic foliar symptoms and stunting, reminiscent of symptoms caused by BGMV from Puerto Rico (BGMV-PR). However, biolistic- or whitefly-mediated inoculation of M. lathyroides with BGMV-PR resulted in no discernible infection. Sequence analysis (2) of the coat protein (CP) gene (AF176092) and common region of the A (CR-A) (AF176093) and B (CR-B) (AF176094) components of the virus from M. lathyroides indicated that these sequences shared only 77.3 to 79.3% and 62.4 to 68.8% identity, respectively, with BGMV from the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Guatemala, Jamaica (JAM), and PR. Alignment of the M. lathyroides virus CP sequence with other well-studied begomoviruses indicate its closest relative is BGMV-PR (82%) and that it shares less than 73% identity with partial CP sequences of Macroptilium golden mosaic virus-JAM (AF089839, AF089840). The directly repeated CR sequences of the M. lathyroides virus, putatively involved in AC1 binding, are TGGTGACTGGTG and are distinct from TGGAGACTGGAG, the analogous direct repeat in BGMV-PR. We provisionally designate the new, previously undescribed begomovirus species from M. lathyroides, Macroptilium mosaic virus (MaMV). Results indicate MaMV-PR and BGMV are distinct, bean-infecting begomoviruses from the Caribbean and that MaMV-PR may pose a new threat to bean production, particularly where the type B vector is established. References: (1) J. K. Brown and R. Ryan. Phytopathology 81:1217, 1991; (2) A. M. Idris and J. K. Brown. Phytopathology 88:648, 1998.