ISHS Acta Horticulturae 702: V International Pineapple Symposium
CHARACTERIZATION AND CONTROL OF PINEAPPLE MEALYBUG WILT ASSOCIATED AMPELOVIRUSES |
| Authors: | E.P. Perez, D.M. Sether, M.J. Melzer, J.L. Busto, C. Nagai, J.S. Hu |
| Keywords: | virus diversity, transgenic pineapple plants |
| Abstract:
Mealybug wilt of pineapple (MWP) is a devastating disease of pineapple worldwide. Pineapple mealybug wilt associated virus-2 (PMWaV-2) infection and mealybug exposure are involved in the etiology of MWP whereas PMWaV-1 is not a necessary component in MWP but correlates with reduced yields. Degenerate primers derived from conserved sequence regions of the HSP-70 homolog gene of various AmpeloŽviruses were used in RT-PCR assays to identify additional viruses in pineapple. Our results show that PMWaV-3 shares 64%, 73%, and 79% amino acid identity with PMWaV-1 in the RNA dependent RNA polymerase, small hydrophobic protein, and HSP-70 homolog ORFs, respectively. Shared amino acid identity with PMWaV-2 in the same ORFs is 30%, 13%, and 44%. Preliminary data have shown that PMWaV-3 is more closely related to PMWaV-1 than to PMWaV-2. The coat protein gene of PMWaV-2 was constructed as an inverted-repeat in pCAMBIA 1300 vector and used to produce transgenic pineapple plants using Agrobacterium-mediated transformation. At least five lines of putatively transgenic pineapple plants that are resistant to PMWaV-2 infection have been produced. These plants have remained resistant to PMWaV-2 infection after multiple challenges with viruliferous mealybugs and have not developed any MWP symptoms after several months. | |
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