Antiviral activity of Thuja orientalis extracts against watermelon mosaic virus (WMV) on Citrullus lanatus.
Watermelon mosaic potyvirus (WMV) is considered as an important virus infecting watermelon and causing adverse effects on crop productivity. To overcome this problem one of the main objectives of plant breeders is to make these strains less effective in the ability to infect plants by treatment with plant extracts. Due to the advantages of plant tissue culture, in vitro, in the process of the selection of different cultivars under biotic stress, this study was conducted to achieve this aim by evaluating the effect of three concentrations of Thuja extract on the multiplication of WMV in watermelon by measuring callus fresh weight and soluble proteins (mg g(-1) fresh weight) of healthy and infected hypocotyl explants. Also, WMV was isolated from naturally infected watermelon and characterized as potyvirus by serological and molecular analyses. The isolated virus gave a positive reaction with WMV antiserum compared with other antibodies of CMV, ZYMV and SqMV using DAS-ELISA. RT-PCR, with the specific primer for WMV-cp. gene, yielded 825 base pair DNA fragments. The results that belong to soluble protein analysis indicated that infected hypocotyl explants treated with 6 g L(-1) recorded the highest rate in the number of soluble protein bands compared with the rest of treatments. As a conclusion of these results, we can recommend to apply the Thuja extract at 6 g L(-1) as a optimum dosage to decrease the infection caused by watermelon mosaic potyvirus.
Biological Science Department, Faculty of Science, North-Jeddah, King Abdulaziz University, 21463 Jeddah, Saudi Arabia ; Botany Department, Faculty of Agriculture, Suez Canal University, 41522 Ismailia, Egypt.
Esam K F
EK
Elbeshehy
Biological Science Department, Faculty of Science, North-Jeddah, King Abdulaziz University, 21463 Jeddah, Saudi Arabia ; Botany Department, Faculty of Agriculture, Suez Canal University, 41522 Ismailia, Egypt.
Ehab M R
EM
Metwali
Biological Science Department, Faculty of Science, North-Jeddah, King Abdulaziz University, 21463 Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
Omar A
OA
Almaghrabi
Biotic stress; CMV, cucumber mosaic virus; Callus; Citrullus lanatus; DAS-ELISA, double antibody sandwich enzyme-linked immuno-sorbent assay; DSDAW, double sterilized distilled autoclaved water; MS, Murshige and Skoog medium; Molecular analysis; Protein; RT, reverse transcription; Reverse transcription; SDS-PAGE, Sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis; SqMV, squash mosaic virus; Thuja orientalis extracts; Thuja orientalis, T. orientalis; WMV, watermelon mosaic virus; Watermelon mosaic virus; ZYMV, Zucchini yellow mosaic virus