Study of Watermelon Mosaic Virus in Cucurbit Fields of Jahrom Area, Iran

  Study of Watermelon Mosaic Virus in Cucurbit Fields of Jahrom Area, Iran

Watermelon mosaic virus (WMV, Potyvirus) is one of the most important viruses and is responsible for important losses in most major crops worldwide. To study the importance of WMV in cucurbit fields of Jahrom area, an ELISA survey was done during 2013 and 2014 growth seasons. Sampling was done from cucurbits with symptoms of mosaic, deformation, blistering of leaves and fruits. Results of DAS-ELISA Showed that 68 of 135 collected samples were infected with WMV. Results of DAS-ELISA verified by reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) method using a pair specific primer of coat protein gene of a positive sample. Comparisons of nucleotide sequences of CP gene of this isolate with those from gene bank (NCBI) showed more than 98% nucleotide sequence homology. According to the results of this study, the most infection of WMV was found in melon (78%) and then squash (40%) and watermelon (35%), respectivelyp>