Distribution and molecular variability of four tobacco viruses in China

Dear Editor,Plant viruses cause great economic losses to tobacco production(Dai et al.,2012).Many types of viruses have been reported to infect tobacco plants,including Tobacco mosaic virus(TMV)(Chen et al.,2014),Cucumber mosaic virus(CMV)(Dai et al.,2012),Tobacco

Molecular variability and evolution of a natural population of tomato yellow leaf curl virus in Shanghai,China

Tomato yellow leaf curl virus （TYLCV）, belonging to the genus Begomovirus of the family Geminiviridae, is emerging as the most destructive pathogen of tomato plants. Since the first report of TYLCV in Shanghai, China in 2006, TYLCV has spread rapidly to 13 provinces or autonomous regions of China. In this study, the molecular varia- bility and evolution of TYLCV were monitored in Shanghai from its first upsurge in 2006 until 2010. Full-length genomic sequences of 26 isolates were obtained by rolling circle amplification. Sequence analysis showed that the intergenic region was the most variable, with a mean mutation rate of 4.81×10-3 nucleotide substitutions per site per year. Ge- netic differentiation was found within isolates obtained from 2006, 2009, and 2010, though a linear increase in genetic diversity over time was not evident. Whilst significant parts of TYLCV genes were under negative selection, the C4 gene embedded entirely within the C1 gene had a tendency to undergo positive selection. Our results indicate that a mechanism of independent evolution of overlapping regions could apply to the natural population of TYLCV in Shanghai, China.

Morphological and Genetical Variability among Rhizoctonia solani Isolates Causing Sheath Blight Disease of Rice

Eighteen isolates of Rhizoctonia solani collected from infected rice plants in four different locations of Bangladesh were studied by using morphological characters and molecular markers. Anastomosis study with a reference isolate confirmed that all the isolates belonged to R. solani. Significant variation was observed in sclerotial size, shape and distribution. Un-weighted pair group method with arithmetic mean dendrogram constructed based on the Gower＇s general similarity coefficient showed that these isolates were grouped into four clusters at the 0.68 similarity coefficent according to morphological characters. Cluster I was a major cluster consisting of 13 isolates, while clusters Ⅱ to Ⅳ consisted of 1 or 2 isolates. Analyses by variable number of tandem repeat and amplified fragment length polymorphism markers showed that the isolates were grouped into five and three clusters at a similarity coefficient of 0.64 and 0.69, respectively. Although most of the variability was found between isolates from different regions as expected, significant variation was observed within the isolates collected from similar agro-ecological regions. Our results suggest the presence of different races of R. solani within the same local geographic regions.