Pepino mosaic virus - A pathogen of tomato crops in Poland: Biology, evolution and diagnostics

Abstract

Pepino mosaic virus (PepMV) has the potential to cause serious tomato disease. Several isolates of PepMV were collected between 2003-2010 in the Department of Virology and Bacteriology, Institute of Plant Protection - National Research Institute, Poznań, Poland. The isolates were obtained from greenhouse tomato plants (Solanum lycopersicum) collected from different regions of Poland. Clear biological and genetic differences were detected among the Polish PepMV isolates. Since the latter induced a wide range of symptoms on tested plant species, five different pathotypes were distinguished. Sequence analysis showed that the Polish PepMV isolates share a very high sequence identity with those representing European and Chilean 2 genotype. The analysis of the genetic diversity of the Polish PepMV CH2 isolates suggested that each of them exists as a genetically diverse collection of variants called a quasispecies.