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First report of Parietaria mottle virus in Mirabilis jalapa

G.Parrella*

Dipartimento di Protezione delle Piante e Microbiologia Applicata, Università degli Studi and Centro di Studio del CNR sui Virus e le Virosi delle Colture Mediterranee, Via G. Amendola 165/a, I-70126 Bari, Italy

*csvvgp06@area.ba.cnr.it

Accepted for publication 22/01/02

Plants of Mirabilis jalapa (family Nyctaginaceae) with violet and yellow flowers, growing in a private garden in southern Italy, were found to host Parietaria mottle virus (PMoV) (genus Ilarvirus). Infected plants showed mild mosaic, leaf malformations of the upper leaves and necrotic lines pattern in some of the basal leaves (Fig. 1 and 2). Preliminary electron microscope observations showed the presence of spherical virus particles in the sap from infected plants. No other virus-like particles were observed.


Fig.1. Symptoms induced on Mirabilis jalapa by PMoV.
necrotic lines pattern on old leaf (right) and mild mosaic
with leaf malformations of the upper leaves (left).


Fig. 2. General appearance of a Mirabilis
plant infected with PMoV.

This virus was readily sap transmitted to Chenopodium quinoa and C. amaranticolor, in which it induced symptoms resembling those elicited by PMoV (Ramasso et al., 1997). The isolated virus was subsequently identified as PMoV by Antibody Coated Plate-ELISA (ACP-ELISA), with an antiserum raised to the tomato isolate TI-1 of PMoV (kindly supplied by P. Roggero, Istituto di Fitovirologia Applicata, CNR, Turin, Italy), as well as by dot-blot hybridization with a specific riboprobe to PMoV (Fig. 3) (Parrella et al., 2000). Back transmission to healthy Mirabilis seedlings, with leaf extracts from systemically infected Chenopodium or Mirabilis plants, reproduced the symptoms originally observed (Fig. 2) and confirming that PMoV was the causal agent of the disease observed in Mirabilis. Plants of Parietaria officinalis growing nearby infected Mirabilis plants were also found to harbour PMoV.


Fig. 3. Molecular detection of PMoV with a specific DIG-labelled riboprobe from sap
of single naturally infected M. jalapa plants (1-8). C = positive control; H = healthy control.

PMoV was first isolated from P. officinalis in north-west Italy (Caciagli et al., 1989) and in the last few years this virus has been isolated in Italy, France and Greece from tomato crops (Ramasso et al., 1997; Roggero et al., 2000). This report represents the first record of PMoV in Mirabilis jalapa and provides further confirmation of the spread of this virus into plant species other than P. officinalis.

References

Caciagli P, Boccardo G, Lovisolo O, 1989. Parietaria mottle virus, a possible new ilarvirus from Parietaria officinalis (Urticaceae). Plant Pathology 3, 577-584.

Parrella G, Roggero P, Gallitelli D, 2000. Detection of Parietaria Mottle Virus by digoxigenin-labelled cRNA probe and RT-PCR. Proceedings of the 5th Congress of the European Foundation for Plant Pathology, Taormina-Giardini Naxos, 19-22 September, pp. 219-220.

Ramasso E, Roggero P, Dellavalle G, Lisa V, 1997. Necrosi apicale del pomodoro causata da un Ilarvirus. Informatore Fitopatologico 1, 71-77.

Roggero P, Ciuffo M, Katis N, Alioto D, Crescenzi A, Parrella G, Gallitelli D, 2000. Necrotic disease in tomatoes in Greece and southern Italy caused by the tomato strain of Parietaria mottle virus. Journal of Plant Pathology 82,159.

The British Society for Plant Pathology