First report of Amaranthus sp. as a natural host of capsicum chlorosis virus in India.

Capsicum chlorosis virus (CaCV) is emerging as economically important tospovirus, being a recently identified virus its complete host range was still not completely known. Virus infected leaves of amaranth plants grown in the vicinity of Capsicum fields showing characteristic symptoms of tospoviruses were collected, confirmed by tospovirus group specific antibody for the presence of a tospovirus and then the presence of CaCV was confirmed by virus specific antibodies. Nucleocapsid protein (NP) specific primer were used for amplification of NP gene and amplified cDNA products were confirmed by sequencing that the virus infecting amaranth was an isolate of CaCV. A comparison of the NP sequence with other isolate confirmed that it was 100 % similar to the reported Indian isolate of CaCV. To best of our knowledge this is the first report of natural infection of CaCv in Amaranthus sp. in India.