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Date: Mon 21 Aug 2023
Source: Springer via Journal of Plant Pathology [edited]
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s42161-023-01483-1


Citation: Frew L, Hogan C, Andrews K, et al. First report of eggplant mottled dwarf virus in _Pittosporum tobria_ in the United Kingdom. J Plant Pathol. 2023; https://doi.org/10.1007/s42161-023-01483-1.
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In August 2020, a sample of _Pittosporum tobria_ was submitted to Fera Science Ltd. from a nursery in West Sussex, United Kingdom (UK). The sample was sent in during a routine plant health inspection, where the presence of an unknown disease was discovered on 20 plants. Symptoms included chlorotic mottling of veins and adjacent tissues along with the distortion of leaves. The sample was tested by high throughput sequencing (HTS) on a MinION sequencer (Oxford Nanopore Technologies) and nucleotide sequence analyses (GenBank Accession No. OQ716556). A total number of 178 904 read pairs were obtained, and eggplant mottled dwarf virus (EMDV) and pittosporum cryptic virus 1 (GenBank Accession No. OQ716558) were identified. The presence of EMDV was confirmed by ELISA using a specific antiserum (Loewe, Germany).

In February 2022, 2 _Pittosporum tobria_ were submitted to Fera Science Ltd. from a nursery in Gloucestershire, UK. Plants exhibited similar symptoms to those previously seen, and tested positive for EMDV by ELISA (DSMZ, Germany). EMDV and pittosporum cryptic virus 1 were confirmed by HTS using a MiSeq sequencer (Illumina UK) (Fowkes et al. 2021) (GenBank Accession No. OQ716555, OQ716557, OQ716559). In both instances, plants were destroyed on advice from DEFRA (Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs).

EMDV has been assigned to the species _Alphanucleorhabdovirus melongenae_ in the genus _Alphanucleorhabdovirus_, family Rhabdoviridae. It can spread through infected propagation material (De Stradis et al. 2008). EMDV can be transmitted by the leafhopper _Anaceratogallia ribauti_ (Giustina et al. 2000), and as this leafhopper is present in the UK, there is a possibility that this vector could be a source of the spread of the virus. Although the virus is highly damaging in vegetable crops, its impact remains minor because incidence in the field is very low. This is the 1st record of EMDV in the UK.

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[A summary of EMDV is available at https://www.cabidigitallibrary.org/doi/10.1079/cabicompendium.20496. - Mod.JH

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See Also

2006
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Eggplant mottled dwarf virus, potato, tomato - Slovenia 20060210.0436
2001
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Eggplant mottled dwarf virus - Bulgaria 20010823.1994

Website: http://www.isid.org

Published: August 23, 2023