Emergence of quarantine tobacco ringspot virus in impatiens walleriana in the Czech Republic

Abstract

Tobacco ringspot virus (TRSV) is a quarantine pathogen in Europe. During an official inspection in November 2011, Impatiens walleriana plants showing symptoms were found in a nursery in the Czech Republic. The causal agent of the disease was detected as Nepovirus group A by RT-PCR using specific primers of the Nepovirus group. Sequence analysis of PCR fragments confirms that the detected virus is TRSV. TRSV detection in these plants was further confirmed by ELISA and one-step RT-PCR using specific primers. The coat protein (CP) gene of the Czech TRSV isolate was sequenced, and the sequence analysis showed high identity of both nucleotide (99.28%) and amino acid (99.96%) levels compared with other known TRSV isolates from GenBank. Two amino acid motifs characteristic of nepoviruses, FDDY (FDAY) and FWGR (FYGR), were found equally at positions 80 and 497 of the TRSV CP genes, respectively, including the sequences described in this study.