Page 5 - Volume 2,Issue 2, July 2009
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© Benaki Phytopathological Institute
Pepino mosaic virus
49
PepMV is fairly stable. In endpoint dilu-
tion studies, sap from infected
N. glutinosa
was still infectious at dilutions of 10
-4
and
occasionally at 10
-5
. Sap lost most of its in-
fectivity after 10 minutes at 65
o
C and was no
longer infectious at 70
o
C (Jones
et al.,
1980).
Sap stored at 20
o
C still shows some infec-
tivity after three months, while leaves of
N.
glutinosa
desiccated over silica gel were still
infectious after six months. Under green-
house and field conditions, the virus may
easily survive for several weeks in plant de-
bris and on surfaces or tools that have come
in contact with virus-infected leaves or fruit
(C.C.M.M. Stijger, personal comunication).
There are indications that virion infectivity is
retained longer at lower temperatures (Van
der Vlugt, unpublished).
A polyclonal antiserum raised against
the original pepino isolate did not react with
Potato virus
X (PVX) and
Potato Acuba mosaic
virus (PAMV), the only two other potexvirus-
es known to infect tomato. Both in immu-
no-sorbent electron microscopy (IEM) and
in ELISA the antiserum clearly reacted with
different tomato isolates although at a low-
er titre (Jones
et al.
, 1980). Comparisons of
isolates from the different strains (EU-toma-
to, Chile-2 and US1) with an antiserum raised
against the EU-tomato type isolate (Van der
Vlugt
et al.
, 2000) showed differences in het-
erologous titres between them (Van der
Vlugt
et al.
, unpublished). These differenc-
es, however, only became apparent at very
a
c
b
d
Figure 1.
PepMV symptoms on tomato plants: (a) yellow leaf
spots, (b) leaf bubbling, (c) nettle head, and (d) fruit mar-
bling.
Courtesy: Dr R.A.A. van der Vlugt, Plant Research International,
Wageningen, The Netherlands.
