Investigation of the prevalence of citrus psorosis virus (CPsV) in the citrus production areas of the Eastern Mediterranean region, and its molecular identification and characterization

In this study, the prevalence of orange, mandarin and grapefruit orchards in the Eastern Mediterranean region known to be contaminated with Citrus psorosis virus (CPSV) disease has been determined. Biological and molecular characterization of collected plant samples was carried out. The genomic differences between the CPSV variants were separated to determine nucleotide sequences. For the identification and characterization of CPSV, samples were taken from 50 different citrus trees with severe barking lesions, vein banding and oak leaf pattern symptoms on young leaves, old leaves and concave gum symptoms. The collected leaf samples were analyzed by RT-PCR studies. Different gene pairs of CPSV were identified by using different primer pairs.In the biological indexing studies, CPSV was inoculated to 8 month old Pineapple oranges (Citrus sinensis) plants which grown from the seed. Vein banding symtoms and shock reaction of CPSV were observed in the first growth flushes of infected indicator plants during biological indexing assays. Blast analysis showed that CPSV in the NCBI gene bank had 98% similarity to nucleotide sequences with corresponding regions of reference genomes.