Carnation mottle virus, an important viral agent infecting carnation cut-flower crops in Mahallat of Iran.

One of the most important cut-flower crops grown worldwide on commercial scale is Carnation (Dianthus caryophyllus L.). It's the main production of Mahallat where is one of the most important ornamental plants production centers of Iran. Infection of carnation with pathogens Like viral agents causes economic losses in carnation cut-flower crop. One of the viral agents of this flower is Carnation mottle virus (CarMV) which is the type member of genus Carmovirus and belongs to the Tombusviridae family. It is naturally transmitted by grafting and contacting between plants. Although its infection lead to mild symptims, it weakens the plant to infection by other pathogens. The carnation greenhouses of Mahallat were visited during 2008 January to April and 100 samples with mild mosaic symptom were collected and tested by DAS-ELISA using CarMV specific polyclonal antibody. The results showed that 75% of samples wrere infected with this virus. Mechanical inocubation of Chenopodium quinoa, C. amaranticolor and Spinacea oleracea with extracted crude sap of CarMV infected carnation Leaves in phosphate buffer (pH, 7) resulted in appearance of chlorotic and necrotic local lesions on inoculated leaves 4-7 days after incubation. The virus was partially purified using C. amaranticolor locally symptomatic leaves. Total soluble proteins were extracted from healthy and CarMV infected C. amaranticolor plants and beside partially purified preparation electrophoresed through 15% poly acrylamide get according to SDS-PAGE standard procedure. Protein bands were electroblotted onto nitrocelluse membrane and incubated with CarMV polyclonal during western immunoblot analysis according to standard method. The result revealed a distinc protein band with Mr of 35.5 kDa in total protein preparation of infected plant and viral partial pure preparation, without any reaction in those of healthy plant. RT-PCR carried out using total RNA extracted from infected plant by Rneasy Plant Mini Kit (Qiagen)and a pair of primers, CPu, CPd, corresponding to the flanking region of the virus CP resulted in amplification of a DNA fragment in expected size around 1 kbp.