Biological Characterization and Complete Genome Sequence of a Possible Strain of Indian cassava mosaic virus from Jatropha curcas in India

The outbreak of a severe mosaic disease with a significant incidence was noticed on Jatropha curcas plants growing in Lucknow, Northern India. The causal virus was successfully transmitted by whiteflies (Bemisia tabaci) and grafting from naturally infected to healthy J. curcas plants. The association of Begomovirus with the mosaic disease of J. curcas was detected by PCR using primers specific to DNA-A of Begomoviruses. Further, full-length DNA-A genome of ∼2.7kb was amplified by RCA followed by digestion with Bam HI restriction enzyme. Cloning and sequencing of obtained amplicons resulted in 2740 nucleotides of complete DNA-A consisting of six ORFs and IR region (GenBank Accession HM230683). The sequence analysis revealed highest 85% similarities with Jatropha curcas mosaic virus, 77-84% with Indian cassava mosaic virus and 73-76% with Sri Lankan cassava mosaic virus isolates. Phylogenetic analysis of the Begomovirus isolate also showed a clear-cut distinct relationship with earlier reported Begomoviruses from Jatropha curcas and other Begomoviruses. On the basis of the guidelines of the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV-2008), our virus isolate was identified as a possible strain of Indian cassava mosaic virus, and its name Jatropha mosaic India virus (JMIV) is proposed.