© Benaki Phytopathological Institute
Hellenic Plant Protection Journal - Special Issue
40
rus isolate from eggplant was recently se-
quenced, studies concerning the genet-
ic variability among isolates from different
plant species are still limited. In the present
study, a comparative analysis of gene se-
quences encoding structural and function-
al proteins between virus isolates from var-
ious hosts such as eggplant, caper (
Caparis
spinosa)
, honeysuckle (
Lonicera japonica)
, to-
mato, tobacco, cucumber, rose mallow (
Hi-
biscus syriacus)
and
Pittosporum tobira
was
conducted. More specifically, the compari-
son was held among sequences of the N, X,
Y and G ORFs (849, 294, 633 and 1257 nt, re-
spectively). The analysis revealed high ge-
netic variability in the gene encoding the X
protein which was up to 22% at nt level and
23% at amino acid level. N, G and Y genes
were the most conserved displaying a max-
imum variability of 14, 15 and 16% at nt lev-
el (1 to 4% at amino acid level). The virus iso-
lates from eggplant, cucumber, tobacco and
hibiscus constitute a distinct phylogenet-
ic subgroup which differs from the respec-
tive consisting of EMDV isolates from toma-
to, caper, honeysuckle and
P. tobira
. Certain
isolates from caper plants are of particular
interest as they have a truncated G ORF, 92
amino acids shorter compared to that of the
homologous ORF of the other isolates.
Detection and molecular characterization of viruses belonging to the
family
Betaflexiviridae
(CNRMV, CGRMV and CVA) in sweet cherry orchards
E.V. D
ROUGKAS
, A.T. K
ATSIANI
, E. D
ELIGIANNIS
, C. K
TORI
, N.I. K
ATIS
and V.I. M
ALIOGKA
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Faculty of Agriculture, Forestry and Natural
Environment, School of Agriculture, Laboratory of Plant Pathology, GR-541 24
Thessaloniki, Greece
Cherry is susceptible to a number of virus
species belonging to the family
Betaflexiviri-
dae.
However,
their presence has not been
studied extensively in Greece. For that rea-
son surveys were conducted in the spring of
2006, 2007 and 2009 and 166 cherry samples
were randomly collected from 12 different
areas in Northern Greece. The samples were
tested for the presence of viruses of the fam-
ily
Betaflexiviridae
by using a generic nested
RT – PCR that amplifies part of the viral poly-
merase of betaflexiviruses. Sequence analy-
sis of selected samples showed high similar-
ity with published homologous sequences
of
Cherry necrotic rusty mottle virus
(CNRMV),
Cherry green ring mottle virus
(CGRMV) and
Cherry virus A
(CVA). In order to further study
their incidence, the generic nested RT-PCR
assay was modified to include specific prim-
ers for the detection of CNRMV, CGRMV and
CVA. The assays performed showed high
incidence of CNRMV (64/166), followed by
CVA (44/166) and CGRMV (21/166). Sequence
analysis of PCR products confirmed the spec-
ificity of the methods used and showed high
intraspecies variability of the viruses tested.
The detection methods developed are cur-
rently applied for studying the presence of
CNRMV, CGRMV and CVA in other stone fruit
trees.
Molecular Characterization and genetic diversity of
Little Cherry Virus-1
(LChV-1) populations
Α.T. K
ATSIANI
, V.I. Μ
ALIOGKA
, K.E. E
FTHIMIOU
and N.I. K
ATIS
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Faculty of Agriculture, Forestry and Natural
Environment, School of Agriculture, Laboratory of Plant Pathology, GR-541 24
Thessaloniki, Greece
Little Cherry Virus-1
(LChV1), a member of the
family
Closteroviridae,
is one of the two vi-
ruses associated with Little Cherry disease
(LChD) which causes severe losses in sus-
