Abstract:

Tomato ringspot virus (ToRSV) is a virus having isometric structure and single helix positive sense and is formed by a combination of two genomic RNA (RNA-1 and RNA-2) in the Secoviridae family from the Nepovirus group, and it causes economically devastating diseases in a wide range of hosts. In this study, 300 leaf samples from tomato (Solanum lycopersicum), pepper (Capsicum annuum), cucumber (Cucumis sativus) and grapevine (Vitis vinifera) plants exhibiting virus-like symptoms were collected from three different districts of Hakkari province between September 2014 and July 2015. The samples were tested for ToRSV infection on DNA fragments of 411 bp in size by Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR), using specific primers for the RNA dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp) gene. Seven out of 300 leaf samples (2.3%) were found to be infected with ToRSV. The virus was detected in tomato, pepper and cucumber samples, but its presence was not so evident in grapevine plants. The DNA sequences were submitted to GenBank (Accession numbers; KT728407, KT728408, KT728409 and KT728410). Our ToRSV isolates were compared with the ones available in GenBank, and the analysis of four ToRSV isolate RdRp gene sequences revealed that the nucleotide and amino acid homology were 83-100% and 94‐100%, respectively. Phylogenetic analysis suggested that Turkish ToRSV isolates and currently available ToRSV isolates in GenBank were divided into three distinct groups. This analysis provides, to the best of our knowledge, the first report on the partial RdRp sequence of ToRSV in Turkey.

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