ARS | Publication request: INFECTIOUS CLONES OF CUCURBIT LEAF CURL VIRUS AND VIABLE REASSORTANTS WITH SQUASH LEAF CURL VIRUSES

Submitted to: American Phytopathological Society Annual Meeting
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: March 22, 2001
Publication Date: June 1, 2001
Citation: Brown, J.K., Idris, A.M., Alteri, C., Stenger, D.C. 2001. Infectious clones of cucurbit leaf curl virus and viable reassortants with squash leaf curl viruses. American Phytopathological Society Annual Meeting. Phytopathology 91 (Supplement):S11

Technical Abstract: Cucurbit leaf curl virus (CuLCV), a whitefly-transmitted geminivirus from the southwestern US and Mexico is a newly emergent, bipartite begomoviral species. Cloned CuLCV A and B components of an Arizona isolate were infectious by biolistic inoculation to pumpkin and progeny virus was transmissible by the whitefly vector, thereby completing Koch's Postulates. .CuLCV DNA-A shared its highest nucleotide sequence identities with Squash leaf curl virus-R, SLCV-E, and Bean calico mosaic virus (BCMoV), at 84.4%, 82.7%, and 80.2%, respectively, while CuLCV DNA-B was most closely related to BCMoV (70.6%), SLCV-R (69.0%), and SLCV-E (67.7%). The cis-acting replication element within the CR of CuLCV (GGTGTCCTGGTG) is 100% conserved with SLCV-E and SLCV-R, suggesting reassortants among these viruses may be viable. Certain reassortants between CuLCV and SLCV-E produced systemic infection of pumpkin. Emergence of CuCLV and demonstrated infectivity of certain reassortants, indicates a dynamic complex of cucurbit-infecting species occurs in the region.