ISHS Acta Horticulturae 657: XIX International Symposium on Virus and Virus-like Diseases of Temperate Fruit Crops - Fruit Tree Diseases
MOLECULAR CHARACTERIZATION OF HOP STUNT VIROID (HSVD) SEQUENCE VARIANTS FROM PRUNUS SPECIES |
| Authors: | E. Ragozzino, F. Faggioli, M. Barba, M. Malfitano |
| Keywords: | HSVd isolates, stone fruit, sequence analysis, phylogenetic analysis |
| DOI: | 10.17660/ActaHortic.2004.657.61 |
| Abstract:
Hop stunt viroid (HSVd) belongs to genus Hostuviroid within family Pospiviroidae and consists of a 295-303 nucleotide circular single-stranded RNA. HSVd has been found in a wide range of herbaceous and woody hosts where the infection seems to be latent (such as grapevine, apricot, pear) or may induce peculiar symptoms such as hop stunt, citrus cachexia, and dapple fruit of plum and peach. At present HSVd isolates are divided into five phylogenetic groups according to the sequence variants: plum-type, hop-type, citrus-type (main groups), plum-citrus-type and plum-hop-citrus-type (recombinant groups). In order to establish if HSVd sequence variants might be related to the host and/or to peculiar symptoms, eight plants of different Prunus species, showing viroid-like symptoms and already known to be infected with HSVd, were selected. In particular, the investigated isolates were: three apricots ‘Vitillo’ with stone-pitting of fruit; one peach ‘Maycrest' producing cracked suture on fruit; one apricot seedling showing ring pox-like symptoms; one apricot ‘San Castrese’ showing interveinal chlorosis; one plum ‘Florentia’ bearing dapple fruit and one asymptomatic plum ‘Florentia’ top-worked on a HSVd-infected apricot. The samples were also investigated for the presence of other viral or viral-like agents. At present only for plum dapple fruit has been demonstrated that HSVd is responsible of the specific symptomatology. Molecular and phylogenetic analyses showed that all isolates grouped into the two recombinant type-groups and the sequence variability seems neither related to the host nor to symptomatology. | |
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