Serological and molecular detection of bean leaf roll and chickpea chlorotic stunt luteoviruses in chickpea from Iran

Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) is an important legume crop and widely cultivated in northwestern provinces of Iran. During a survey in the 2015 growing season a total of 170 selected chickpea plants with general yellowing symptoms including stunting and leaf bronzing were collected. Serological Elisa and tissue blot immunoassay (TIBA) tests revealed the presence of Bean leaf roll virus (BLRV) and Chickpea chlorotic stunt virus (CpCSV) as the predominant viruses in the region. Some serologically positive samples of BLRV and CpCSV were selected and rechecked by RT-PCR. Th e results of amplifi ed PCR products using a specifi c pair of primers towards the Cp gene region of the viruses were approximately 413 bp for CpCSV and 391 bp for BLRV. Results obtained from sequence comparison of BLRV (IR-F-Lor-5) isolate form two subgroups with eight other BLRV isolates from GeneBank indicating a high homology of 96% with isolates from Argentina, Germany, Tunisia, USA, Spain, and Colombia. An isolate from Norabad (Iran) (IR-Nor) had 98% homology with HQ840727 Libyan isolate. CpCSV sequence comparison with six other GeneBank isolates indicated 98% homology with isolates from Tunisia and Azerbaijan. Th e overall results of this research revealed the CpCSV and BLRV (luteoviruses) associated with the yellowing disease syndrome of chickpea crops in the surveyed region.