Pelargonium (Geranium) is the number one pot plant in many areas of the United States and Europe. Israel and the U.S. send to Europe rooted cuttings, foundation stocks and finished plants to supply a certain share of the market. Geraniums are propagated mainly vegetatively from cuttings. Consequently, viral diseases have been and remain a major threat to the production and quality of the crop. Among the viruses isolated from naturally infected geraniums, 11 are not specific to Pelargonium and occur in other crops while 6 other viruses seem to be limited to geranium. However, several of these viruses are not sufficiently characterized to conclude that they are distinct agents and their nomenclature and taxonomy are confusing. The ability to separate, distinguish and detect the different viruses in geranium will overcome obstacles te developing effective detection and certification schemes. Our focus was to further characterize some of these viruses and develop better methods for their detection and control. These viruses include: isolates of pelargonium line pattern virus (PLPV), pelargonium ringspot virus (PelRSV), pelargonium flower break virus (PFBV), pelargonium leaf curl (PLCV), and tomato ringspot virus (TomRSV). Twelve hybridoma cell lines secreting monoclonal antibodies specific to a geranium isolate of TomRSV were produced. These antibodies are currently being characterized and will be tested for the ability to detect TomRSV in infected geraniums. The biological, biochemical and serological properties of four isometric viruses - PLPV, PelRSV, and PFBV (and a PelRSV-like isolate from Italy called GR57) isolated from geraniums exhibiting line and ring pattern or flower break symptoms - and an isolate ol elderbeny latent virus (ELV; which the literature indicates is the same as PelRSV) have been determined Cloned cDNA copies of the genomic RNAs of these viruses were sequenced and the sizes and locations of predicted viral proteins deduced. A portion of the putative replicase genes was also sequenced from cloned RT-PCR fragments. We have shown that, when compared to the published biochemical and serological properties, and sequences and genome organizations of other small isometric plant viruses, all of these viruses should each be considered new, distinct members of the Carmovirus group of the family Tombusviridae. Hybridization assays using recombinant DNA probes also demonstrated that PLPV, PelRSV, and ELV produce only one subgenomic RNA in infected plants. This unusual property of the gene expression of these three viruses suggests that they are unique among the Carmoviruses. The development of new technologies for the detection of these viruses in geranium was also demonstrated. Hybridization probes developed to PFBV (radioactively-labeled cRNA riboprobes) and to PLPV (non-radioactive digoxigenin-labeled cDNAs) were generally shown to be no more sensitive for the detection of virus in infected plants than the standard ELISA serology-based assays. However, a reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction assay was shown to be over 1000 times more sensitive in detecting PFBV in leaf extracts of infected geranium than was ELISA. This research has lead to a better understanding of the identity of the viruses infecting pelargonium and to the development of new tools that can be used in an improved scheme of providing virus-indexed pelargonium plants. The sequence information, and the serological and cloned DNA probes generated from this work, will allow the application of these new tools for virus detection, which will be useful in domestic and international indexing programs which are essential for the production of virus-free germplasm both for domestic markets and the international exchange of plant material.
Diagnosis of plant viruses by nucleic acid hybridization