Complete genome sequence of a novel bipartite begomovirus associated with tomato leaf curl New Delhi disease in golden melon (Cucumis melo) plant leaves
Listed in
This article is not in any list yet, why not save it to one of your lists.Abstract
The tomato leaf curl New Delhi virus (ToLCNDV), also known as Begomovirus solanumdelhiense is a whitefly ( Bemisia tabaci )-transmitted bipartite begomovirus that causes significant economic losses exceeding USD $300 million annually. It has been reported to infect a wide range of commercially important crops such as tomato, papaya, golden melon, watermelon and luffa. The ToLCNDV genome consists of two components, DNA-A and DNA-B. In this study, we confirmed the presence of viral genome from the gDNA extracted from a symptomatic golden melon plant in Sarawak, Malaysia. The complete bipartite genome was recovered using Illumina shotgun metagenomic approach, offering a primer-free alternative to conventional Sanger-based methods, enabling detection of more divergent viral variants. Comparative genomics against publicly available ToLCNDV genomes from public database showed that the Sarawak strain clusters closely with other Southeast Asian ToLCNDV strains. Notably, the DNA-B segment demonstrated greater discriminatory power for grouping isolates by geographic origin rather than host specificity.
