New Disease Reports
New Disease Reports (2005) 12, 26.
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First report of Ornithogalum mosaic virus and Ornithogalum virus 2 in New Zealand

T. Wei 1, M.N. Pearson 1* and D. Cohen 2

*m.pearson@auckland.ac.nz

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Accepted: 18 Oct 2005

Ornithogalum thyrsoides, Iris 'Wedgewood' and Iris tingitana, exhibiting mild mosaic leaf symptoms were collected from a commercial grower's property near Palmerston North, New Zealand. All tested positive for potyvirus infection by ELISA using a universal potyvirus monoclonal antibody (Agdia Inc., Elkhart, USA). Universal Potyvirus primers PV2I/T7 and PV1/SP6 (Mackenzie et al., 1998) were used to amplify a ~ 1.7 kb product spanning part of the Nib gene, the entire CP gene and the 3' UTR. The amplicon was cloned into the vector pGEM®-T Easy (Promega Corporation, Madison, WI, USA) and the resultant sequences analysed using ClustalX (version 1.83), PAUP (version 4.0 Beta 10) and DNA-star (version 4.0).

Three distinct sequences related to Ornithogalum mosaic virus (OrMV) were deposited in Genbank: nzOrMV-1 from Ornithogalum thyrsoides (AY994102), nzOrMV-2 from Iris 'Wedgewood' (AY994106), and nzOrMV-3 from Iris tingitana (AY994107). Isolates nzOrMV-1 and nzOrMV-2 shared 95% nucleotide identity with each other and 90% and 91% identity, respectively, with a South African isolate of OrMV from Ornithogalum (D00615). Isolate nzOrMV-3 showed only ~88% identity with nzOrMV-1 and nzOrMV-2, but 99% nucleotide identity with an Australian isolate of OrMV, also obtained from Iris (AF203528). A second potyvirus isolated from O. thyrsoides as a single infection (AY994103), showed between 79 and -99% nucleotide homology to partial Nib gene, complete CP gene and 3'UTR, when compared to previously published sequences of ornithogalum virus 2 (Fuji et al., 2003). In common with the sequences of Ornithogalum virus 2 from Japan, the New Zealand Ornithogalum virus 2 isolate has an unusual cleavage site (V-Y-H-Q/T) between the Nib and CP genes.

OrMV is a distinct Potyvirus species, originally identified from O. thyrsoides in the USA by Smith & Brierley in 1944 (Van Regenmortel et al., 2000), and can cause severe disease problems in some ornamentals (Fuji et al., 2003). Reported susceptible hosts included Chenopodium quinoa, Lachenalia spp., Nicotiana clevelandii, Ornithogalum thyrsoides and Tetragonia tetragonioides; whereas Iris germanica was considered non-susceptible (Burger, 1991). Ornithogalum virus 2 was recently identified from Japan (Fuji et al., 2003), where it was found co-infecting O. thyrsoides with OrMV and another previously unknown potyvirus, ornithogalum virus 3. This is the first report of either OrMV and Ornithogalum virus 2 in New Zealand.

References

  1. Burger JT, 1991. Ornithogalum mosaic potyvirus. In: Brunt A, Crabtree K, Dallwitz M, A, Watson L, Zurcher E, eds. Plant Viruses Online: Descriptions and Lists from the VIDE Database, Version: 20th August 1996. [http://image.fs.uidaho.edu/vide/descr542.htm]
  2. Fuji S, Inoue M, Yamamoto H, Furuya H, Naito H, Matsumoto T, 2003. Nucleotide sequences of the coat protein gene of potyviruses infecting Ornithogalum thyrsoides. Archives of Virology 148, 613-21.
  3. Mackenzie AM, Nolan M, Wei K-J, Clements MA, Gowanlock D, Wallace BJ, Gibbs AJ, 1998. Ceratobium mosaic potyvirus: another virus from orchids. Archives of Virology 143, 903-914.
  4. Van Regenmortel MHV, Fauquet CM, Bishop DHL, Carstens EB, Estes MK, Lemon SM, Maniloff J, Mayo MA, McGeoch DJ, Pringle CR, Wickner RB, 2000. Virus Taxonomy - Seventh Report of the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses. San Diego, USA: Academic Press.
This report was formally published in Plant Pathology

©2005 The Authors