Occurrence of Plantago asiatica mosaic virus infecting oriental lily in India

Abstract

Lilium is a major cut flower grown under protected cultivation in Tamil Nadu and Bengaluru provinces by importing lilium bulbs from European countries. The oriental lilium grown under protected cultivation in Nilgiris provinces expressed the symptom of viral infection. The symptoms in Oriental lily include chlorotic and necrotic streaks on leaves and stunting of the infected plants. Leaf samples expressing the characteristic symptoms of virus infection were indexed using DAC-ELISA and reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). The coat protein (CP) gene of PlAMV was amplified with an amplicon size of 722 bp and sequence analysis confirmed the viruses as Plantago asiatica mosaic virus (PlAMV) with 99 to 100% nucleotide and 99.5 to 100% amino acid homology with other PlAMV isolates. Comparison of multiple sequence alignment analyses confirmed the close relationship between PlAMV and Tulip virus × (TVX), which had 70% nucleotide sequence identity. Phylogenetic analysis of the nucleotide confirms that our PlAMV isolates formed a single subgroup with other PlAMV isolates. The result provides important clues about spread of the virus and to the best of our knowledge it is the first detailed study of PlAMV infecting lily in India.