Grouping and comparison of Indian citrus tristeza virus isolates based on coat protein gene sequences and restriction analysis patterns.

Citrus tristeza virus (CTV) is an aphid-transmitted closterovirus, which causes one of the most important citrus diseases worldwide. Isolates of CTV differ widely in their biological properties. CTV-infected samples were collected from four locations in India: Bangalore (CTV-B), Delhi (CTV-D), Nagpur (CTV-N), and Pune (CTV-P), and were maintained by grafting into Kagzi lime ( Citrus aurantifolia (Christm. Swing.). All isolates produced typical vein clearing and flecking symptoms 6-8 weeks after grafting. In addition, CTV-B and CTV-P isolates produced stem-pitting symptoms after 8-10 months. The CTV coat protein gene (CPG) was amplified by RT-PCR using CPG specific primers, yielding an amplicon of 672 bp for all the isolates. Sequence analysis of the CPG amplicon of all the four Indian isolates showed 93-94% nucleotide sequence homology to the Californian CTV severe stem pitting isolate SY568 and 92-93% homology to the Japanese seedling yellows isolate NUagA and Israeli VT p346 isolates. In phylogenetic tree analysis, Indian CTV isolates appeared far different from other isolates as they formed a separate branch. Comparison among the Indian isolates was carried out by restriction analysis and restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP). Specific primers to various genome segments of well-characterized CTV isolates were used to further classify the Indian CTV isolates.