First Record of Alfalfa mosaic virus in Teucrium fruticans in Italy

摘要

The Teucrium genus (Lamiaceae family) contains ~300 species of evergreen and deciduous shrubs with some species widely used as ornamental plants in rock gardens. During the springs of 2010 and 2011, some plants of Teucrium fruticans L., also known as “tree germander”, growing singly in pots in a Ligurian nursery (Savona Province, northern Italy), were noted for a bright yellow calico mosaic on the leaves (~1% of ~2,000 plants inspected exhibited symptoms). Preliminary electron microscope observations of leaf-dips showed semispherical to bacilliform particles, consistent with Alfamovirus and Oleavirus, in preparations obtained only from leaves of symptomatic plants. Three symptomatic and two asymptomatic plants were checked for Cucumber mosaic virus or Alfalfa mosaic virus (AMV) in protein A sandwich (PAS)-ELISA with commercial kits (Bioreba, Reinach, Switzerland) and Olive latent virus 2 (OLV2) by immunodecoration of virus particles with an OLV2 antiserum produced against an Italian OLV2 isolate.