Determination and molecular characterization of citrus chlorotic virus disease (CCDAV) in lemon trees of Erdemli district

This study aimed to investigate the occurrence and molecular characterization of Citrus chlorotic dwarf virus (CCDaV) causing citrus chlorotic dwarf disease on lemon orchards in Erdemli district in Mersin province. Leaf samples were collected from lemon trees exhibiting typical symptoms of the disease namely leaves curl and deformation, chlorotic spots in the burns and shrinking. The result shows that the average incidence rate of the virus in Erdemli district was 47% while Kütdiken, the most grown lemon variety in the district recorded 52% of average incidence rate. The biological indexing of the pathogen on sour orange (Citrus aurantium) showed a similarity of the macroscopic symptoms of the disease on infected lemon trees in the field with those inoculated sour oranges in a greenhouse. Samples were analyzed with PCR studies and coat protein and movement protein gene regions were determined using different primers As a result of the blast analysis, it was determined that TK4 (JQ920490.1) isolate of CCDaV registered with NCBI has 99.30% similarity with the ErY-4 (MT492444) isolate and the corresponding regions and nucleotide sequences. In addition, it was determined that these isolates had close homology with each other, but the similarity was 98% with Chinese isolates, although they had some nucleotide sequence differences. Keywords: Citrus, CCDaV, PCR