WHITEFLY TRANSMITTED YELLOW MOSAIC DISEASE, SEVERE THREAT TO COWPEA PRODUCTION IN ASSAM, INDIA

SANJEEV KUMAR¹, LINGARAJ SAHOO², BHABEN TANTI³*
¹Department of Botany, Gauhati University, Guwahati-781014, Assam, India
²Department of Biosciences and Bioengineering, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, Guwahati, 781039, India
³Department of Botany, Gauhati University, Guwahati-781014, Assam, India
* Corresponding Author : btanti@gauhati.ac.in

Received : 14-08-2016     Accepted : 19-08-2016     Published : 28-08-2016
Volume : 3     Issue : 1       Pages : 53 - 56
World Res J Biotechnol 3.1 (2016):53-56

Keywords : Cowpea, Mungbean Yellow mosaic India virus, YMD, RCA
Academic Editor : Dr Bhaskar Sarma
Conflict of Interest : None declared
Acknowledgements/Funding : Authors are thankful to the DBT, Govt. of India for research grant. The research was supported by Grants from the Department of Biotechnology, Government of India BT/173/NE/TDP/2011 and BT/01/NE/PS/08). S.K. is grateful to DBT, Govt of India for Research assistance
Author Contribution : SK carried out the survey and collected the infected samples and performed entire experiments. LS and BT conceived and designed the experiments. LS critically analyzed the data. SK, LS and BT prepared the manuscript. All authors read and approved the fina

Yellow mosaic diseases (YMD) in economically important legumes across Southern Asia are majorly caused by four species of geminiviruses (genus Begomovirus, family Geminiviridae). YMD is transmitted by whitefly and causes severe loss to a number of important grain legumes, a rich source of dietary protein. The viruses have limited host range to plants of the family Fabaceae. The efforts to reduce the losses are hampered by limited availability of natural resistance sources and the lack of durable resistance. There exists active genetic interaction between these begomoviruses of the legumes, in the form of both component exchange and classical recombination, but very few studies are there on interaction with viruses that infect other plants. Genetic isolation indicates viruses infecting legumes evolve independently of the begomoviruses of other plant families. This has clear implications for the requirement to develop resistance in legumes, which holds the promise of durability. In our study, we surveyed in 4 districts of Assam, India, at various locations, for severity of viral diseases in cowpea. The morphometric appearances of viral disease in cowpea leaf samples in the field were collected. The genomic DNA were extracted and PCR performed for the detection of viral DNA. The PCR products were cloned and sequenced. The full length obtained sequences were analyzed using NCBI-BLAST and ClUSTL-W program for identification of virus.