Survey on presence of Cucumber mosaic virus (CMV) in single and mixed infections with Potyviruses in North-West of Iran West Iran

Cucumber Mosaic Virus (CMV) is one of the most important viruses infecting Cucurbitaceae and has a wide host range. However, presence of mixed infections with other viruses increases symptoms and damages of viruses. The present study aimed to investigate the mixed infection of CMV with Potyvirus in plants collected from various plant families including Cucurbitaceae with cucumber and Cucurbit, Solanaceae with tomato, pepper and Solanum nigrum and Malvaceae with Malva. sp and Althea sp. Determining in which hosts Potyviruses are mix infected with CMV and in which plants this infection is negligible, is important. Thus, 300 plant samples suspected to be infected were collected and preserved from above-mentioned families from Northwestern of Iran for laboratory and greenhouse experiments with symptoms of Mosaic, deformity and mottling, shrub dwarfism, yellowing and other symptoms of viral plant diseases including (shoe – string in tomato) etc. from each host, 25 samples related to various isolates were scrutinized. In order to conduct primary research on the presence of CMV, systemic and local host of CMV were applied in greenhouse and a pair of CMV coat protein-specific primers were utilized in RT-PCR. Then, detecting mixed infection with Potyviruses was conducted using RT-PCR with universal primers of Potyvirus genus NIb2F/NIb3 in samples whose infection to CMV was proved. The most of mix infections were observed in tomato and cucurbit and the least of mix infections were observed in Malva, pepper and cucumber.