Author：Cheng, Y. H.^1,*, Chen, C. C.¹, and Deng, T. C.¹

Abstrct：

    The main variety of passion fruit (Passiflora edulis x Passiflora edulis f. flavicarpa) cultivated in Taiwan is ‘Tainung No. 1 ’which is a hybrid and propagated only by grafting. In the spring of 2011, plants with severe systemic mosaic and malformation on leaves were found in some orchards located in Puli, Nantou in the middle of Taiwan. However, after growing up to three months, most of these diseased plants became symptomless when the weather became warmer. In March of 2011, 2 leaf samples exhibiting mosaic and 3 samples showing malformation were collectec and tested by DAS-ELISA; none were positively reacted with antibodies against Cucumber mosaic virus (CMV), East Asian passiflora virus (EAPV), Passion fruit mottle virus (PaMV) or Passion fruit crinkle virus (PCV) that have been occurred in Taiwan. The rolling circle amplification (RCA) with hexamer primers was adopted to analyze the potential begomoviruses which were prevalent on the other crops in Taiwan. The RCA amplified products were digested with BamHI and separated on 1.2% agarose by gel electrophoresis. A fragment, about 3 kb, was purified from each gel and cloned into the respective site of pBluescript SK(-) individually. Clones were screened by EcoRI digestion and two types of restriction fragement length patterns were found among them. One type clone containing 2745nucleotides (Accession No. KC161185) with 98.5% identity to Euphorbia leaf curl virus (EuLCV) and the other type clone containing 2732 nucleotide (Accession No. KC161184) with 91.7 identity to Papaya leaf curl Guangdong virus (PaLCuGDV) were revealed by nucleotide comparisons of their DNA-A in the GenBank. Accordingly, we confirmed the existence of passiflora isolates of EuLCV and PaLCuGDV. In a brief survey, allpassion fruit leaf samples were detected EuLCV and/or PaLCuGDV infectionTo our knowledge, this is the first report of begomoviruses associated passion fruit in Taiwan and in the Asia.

Key words: passion fruit, Euphorbia leaf curl virus, Papaya leaf curl Guangdong virus

---

¹ Plant Pathology Division, Taiwan Agricultural Research Institute
*Corresponding Author, E-Mail: YHCHeng@tari.gov.tw

Download: PDF Links