Evidence of Association of Begomovirus with the Yellow Vein Disease of an Ornamental Plant Pot Marigold (Calendula officinalis) from Western Uttar Pradesh

Jitender Singh¹*, Shivani Khanna¹, Koushlesh. Ranjan²,
R.P. Pant³, Pankaj Kumar¹, Anil Sirohi¹ and V. K. Baranwal³

¹College of Biotechnology, SardarVallabhbhai Patel University of Agriculture & Technology, Meerut, Uttar Pradesh – 250110, India.
²Department of Veterinary Physiology and Biochemistry, College of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, SardarVallabhbhai Patel University of Agriculture & Technology, Meerut, Uttar Pradesh- 250110, India.
³Plant Virology unit, Division of Plant Pathology, Indian Agriculture Research Institute, New Delhi- 110012, India.

Abstract

Begomoviruses are among the most damaging pathogens causing epidemics in economically important crops particularly in tropical and subtropical regions. During February 2015, 20 samples of Calendula with yellow vein disease were collected from the campus of S. V. Patel University of Agriculture & Technology, Meerut, Uttar Pradesh, India. Total genomic DNA was isolated from the symptomatic and asymptomatic leaf samples and subjected to  PCR using coat protein gene specific primer of begomovirus. The PCR amplification of ~770bp was obtained from the 13plants out of 20collected plants. The PCR amplicon from coat protein gene was cloned, sequenced and submitted to GenBank, with accession number KT833850. The sequence data was further analyzedby BLAST analysis and phylogenetic tree was constructed using MEGA5.0 software which revealed close similarity of sequences with coat protein gene (AV1) components of other potato begomoviruses, which are all tentative strains of Tomato Leaf Curl New Delhi Virus (ToLCNDV).The result also indicated that Calendula spp. plants infected with Tomato Leaf Curl New Delhi Virus may act as an alternate host (reservoir) for other economically important plants.

Keywords: Begomovirus, PCR, ToLCNDV, Calendula officinalis.