Authors
Cigdem Ulubas¸ Serçe¹, Thierry Candresse², Laurence Svanella-Dumas², Laszlo Krizbai³, Mona Gazel¹, Kadriye Caglayan^1
1Mustafa Kemal University, Plant Protection Department, Hatay, 31034 Antakya, Turkey
²Equipe de Virologie, UMR GDPP, INRA and Université Bordeaux 2, IBMV, Campus INRA, BP81, 33883 Villenave d’Ornon Cedex, France
³Soil Conservation and Plant Health Service, Budapest, Hungary

Abstract:
Sixteen Plum pox virus (PPV) isolates collectedin the Ankara region of Turkeywere analyzedusing available serological and molecular typing assays. Surprisingly, despite the fact that all isolates except one, which was a mix infection, were typed as belonging to the PPV-M strain in four independent molecular assays, nine of them (60%) reacted with both PPV-M specific and PPV-D specific monoclonal antibodies. Partial 5' and 3' genomic sequence analysis on four isolates demonstrated that irrespective of their reactivity towards the PPV-D specific monoclonal antibody, they were all closely related to a recombinant PPV isolate from Turkey, Ab-Tk. All three isolates for which the relevant genomic sequence was obtained showed the same recombination event as Ab-Tk in the HC-Pro gene, around position 1566 of the genome. Complete genomic sequencing of Ab-Tk did not provide evidence for additional recombination events in its evolutionary history. Taken together, these results indicate that a group of closely related PPV isolates characterized by a unique recombination in the HC-Pro gene is prevalent under field conditions in the Ankara region of Turkey. Similar to the situation with the PPV-Rec strain, we propose that these isolates represent a novel strain of PPV, for which the name PPV-T (Turkey) is proposed. Given that PPV-T isolates cannot be identified by currently available typing techniques, it is possible that their presence has been overlooked in other situations. Further efforts should allow a precise description of their prevalence and of their geographical distribution in Turkey and, possibly, in other countries.

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