Biological, immunological and molecular characteristics of plum pox virus isolates

摘要

Eight PPV isolates from different natural host (plum, apricot, peach and sour cherry) were compared on the base of their biological, immunological (N-terminal and MAbs) and molecular characteristics. The isolates examined could be distinguished by their reactivity on test plants of fourteen species into three biological groups. The results obtained with N-terminal antibodies (against two PPV isolates) showed some serological differences among PPV isolates, which however did not correspond to their biological division. Rapid and reliable differentiation of PPV isolates was achieved by the use of two monoclonal antibodies - MAb4DG5 and MAbAL, specific for PPV-D and PPV-M strains, respectively. PPV isolates were investigated for their aphid transmissibility, too. Two of the isolates were aphid transmissible and contained DAG amino triplet, while DAL and NAG replaced this triplet in the coat proteins of non-aphid transmissible ones. All isolates were compared on the base of amino acid sequences of their coat protein genes. Most of the differences in the CPs of the isolates were located in their N-terminal regions, while the core- and C-terminal regions were highly homologous. Five of the isolates showed significant sequence homology with D-strain, and the other two isolates showed high level of similarity with SK-68 isolate.