A study on the infection of Sugarcane Mosaic Virus in different cultivars of sugarcane in Khuzestan province

Sugarcane Mosaic Virus (SCMV) is one of the important diseases of the sugarcane. In this study, the infection of sugarcane mosaic virus in imported and existing cultivars was screened based on nucleic acid-based molecular methods. During 2014–15, samples showing disease symptoms were collected from 90 different cultivars grown in six sugarcane agro-industries and their partial blades were separated. The samples were freeze-dried and powdered in liquid nitrogen. Suitable primers were designed to amplify 1040 bp from the nuclear inclusion B and coat protein gene sequences using the RT-PCR method. Ten out of 90 surveyed samples were SCMV-infected and produced expected-size fragments. These samples belonged to the cultivars of IRC99-06, V58-4, and Q58 from Sugarcane Research and Training Institute for the Development of Industries in Khuzestan, IRC99-09, IRC00-21, and 4380-3 from Salman Farsi agro-industry, CP80-1557 and V68-74 from Imam Khomeini agro-industry and two uncertain cultivars. Four out of 10 detected samples were directly sequenced and deposited in GenBank. A BLASTn search of the four detected isolates, including Kh10, Kh41, Kh44, and Kh28, showed the highest identity to isolates from Iran and Argentina. Phylogenetic tree constructed using the maximum likelihood algorithm showed that the Iranian isolates were probably originated from Argentina and China.