Molecular studies on tomato yellow leaf curl virus in infected tomato and pepper plants

Abstract EN

Tomato Yellow Leaf Curl (TYLC) is an economic disease that caused dramatic losses in tomato crops.

It is caused by a monopartite whitefly-transmitted begomovirus individually or associated with Betasatellite DNAs.

Recently, TYLC disease became more severe in Egypt, and it destroyed completely the tomato crop in some crop seasons during the year.

Tomato and pepper samples with curling symptoms were brought from EL-Nubaria region, El Beheira governorate in Egypt and tested by Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) with specific primers to detect the presence of the causal begomovirus and its associated DNA betasatellites and/or the presence of new genotypes between two tomato yellow leaf curl virus (TYLCV) isolates.

Disease symptoms varied between yellowing, curling and cup-shaped symptoms.

PCR products indicated the presence of the two Mediterranean TYLC begomoviruses strains TYLCV-IL and TYLCV-MiLD, while no new genotypes of the virus or TYLCSV isolate were found in these samples.

Additionally, betasatellites were found to be associated with the virus in all infected tomato and pepper samples either the betasatellite complete genome or its defective form.

In conclusion, no TYLCV new genotypes were detected in the tested samples to be responsible for the severe tomato losses in EL-Nubaria region in El Beheira governorate, but TYLCV/Betasatellites association is expected to play an axial circumference in TYLC disease severity in the same region.