Serological and Molecular Detection of Alfalfa Mosaic Virus in the Major Potato Growing Areas of Saudi Arabia

(Khalid A. Alhudaib)

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Abstract

Potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) is considered one of the most important and potential vegetable crops in Saudi Arabia. Alfalfa mosaic virus (AMV), genus Alfamovirus, family Bromoviridae is among the broad spread viruses in potato. Several potato fields in four major growing areas (Riyadh,Qassim, Hail and Hard) were inspected for the presence of AMV, during spring and fall growing seasons of potato in of 2015 and 2016. The presence of AMV was detected in potato leaf samples using ELISA. RT-PCR was conducted to validate the sensitivity of ELISA test and dot blot hybridization was established as alternative method of ELISA. The highest occurrence of AMV was observed as 18.6% of yellow leaves in Qassim followed by Riyadh with 15.2% while, the lowest infection rates were recorded in Hard and Hail, 8.3 and 10.4%, respectively. The sequences of seven isolates of AMV obtained in this study were determined and the sequences were aligned with the other sequences available in the GeneBank database. Analyses confirmed the low variability among AMV isolated in this study, which means that all AMV isolates may originate from the same source. Due to high incidence of AMV, other economic susceptible crops may become affected by high incidence of this virus in potato crops. This requires accurate indexing of imported potato seed tubers to prevent further spread of the virus in Saudi Arabia. The obtained results indicated that the hybridization and ELISA are suitable techniques in the routine detection of AMV in a large number of samples while RT-PCR is more sensitive and essential for molecular characterization of AMV. Key Words: AMV, Alfamovirus, , Dot blot hybridization, ELISA, Potato, PCR.
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