Coat-protein Gene Based Identification and Characterization of Yellow Mosaic Virus Infecting Blackgram in Northern Karnataka, India

Aims: Coat-protein (CP) based identification and characterization of yellow mosaic virus infecting blackgram.

Place and Duration of Study: The study was carried out during Kharif 2023 at College of Agriculture, Vijayapur.

Methodology: The whole genomic DNA was isolated from the leaf tissues of both healthy blackgram plants and plants infected with the yellow mosaic virus by using a modified CTAB method. Specific primers for YMV were tried to amplify coat protein region of blackgram YMV.

Results: Sequence analysis revealed that the CP gene of the begomovirus under study shared 99.8 per cent similarity with MYMV Shivamogga isolate (OM106035.1) at the nucleotide level. When comparing the deduced amino acid sequences of individual proteins from YMV infecting blackgram at Vijayapur with those of other begomoviruses, the highest identity was found with the MYMV Shivamogga isolate (OM106035.1), showing 84.59 per cent similarity. A phylogenetic tree constructed based on the full-length coat protein gene sequence of MYMV, along with 37 other Geminivirus sequences, formed two major clusters in which MYMV-Vijayapur isolate appeared in Cluster I.

Conclusion: The results of the current study, based on similarities in coat protein sequence at both the nucleotide and amino acid levels, as well as phylogenetic analysis, confirmed the prevalence of MYMV strain rather than MYMIV, HgYMV and DoYMV in blackgram in northern parts of Karnataka.