First report of three begomovirus species infecting Duranta erecta at Delhi NCR region of India

Abstract

The Duranta erecta (golden dewdrop) is an ornamental shrub majorly growing in tropical and sub-tropical regions of the world, bordering gardens and houses due to their evergreen perennial nature. Begomovirus infection is common in ornamental plants, and they serve as a potential reservoir of viruses throughout the year. Symptomatic D. erecta were collected from different regions of the Delhi-National Capital Region (NCR). Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) amplification using coat protein gene-specific primers were performed to detect begomovirus in the suspected samples. The PCR amplicons of ∼770 bp were cloned and sequenced. Nucleotide sequence analysis showed the presence of three different begomoviruses viz. majorly clerodendron yellow mosaic virus, pedilanthus leaf curl virus and duranta leaf curl virus in the samples and also the understudy sequence is showing similarity with the Pakistan isolate from different host, indicating a common ancestry with a diverse host range.

Keywords:

• Begomovirus
• golden dewdrops
• ornamental plants
• alternate host
• whitefly

Acknowledgment

The authors are thankful to the Department of Science and Technology, New Delhi (DST-INSPIRE-Faculty scheme, IFA-17-LSPA-100) for the grant to A. Srivastava; Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR- File No. 5/3/8/29/ITR-F/2020), for the grant to AS, TG.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are openly available in [GenBank database] at [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nuccore/OK662667,OL321798,OK662669,OL518980,OL518981], reference number [OK662667, OL321798, OK662669, OL518980, OL518981].

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India.