Plant Pathology (2009) 58, 783 Doi: 10.1111/j.1365-3059.2009.02110.x © 2009 The Authors Journal compilation © 2009 BSPP 783 Blackwell Publishing Ltd NEW DISEASE REPORT Occurrence of East African cassava mosaic virus-Uganda (EACMV-UG) in Burkina Faso F. Tiendrébéogo a,b , P. Lefeuvre b , M. Hoareau b , V. S. E. Traoré c , N. Barro a , B. Reynaud b , A. S. Traoré a , G. Konaté c , O. Traoré c and J.-M. Lett b * a Laboratoire de Biochimie & Biologie Moléculaire, CRSBAN/UFR/SVT, Université de Ouagadougou 03 BP 7131 Ouagadougou 03, Burkina Faso; b CIRAD, UMR 53 PVBMT CIRAD-Université de la Réunion, Pôle de Protection des Plantes, 7 Chemin de l’IRAT, 97410 Saint Pierre, La Réunion, France; and c Institut de l’Environnement et de Recherches Agricoles (INERA), 01 BP 476 Ouagadougou 01, Burkina Faso Cassava (Manihot esculenta) is a major staple food crop cultivated throughout Africa, and is affected most severely by cassava mosaic disease (CMD) occurring at high incidence throughout the continent. CMD is caused by cassava mosaic geminiviruses (CMGs) belonging to the genus Begomovirus (family Geminiviridae). The complex of CMGs include seven African species; the three main species are: African cassava mosaic virus (ACMV), East African cassava mosaic virus (EACMV) and South African cassava mosaic virus (SACMV) (Bull et al., 2006). In Uganda, an extremely severe epidemic of CMD has developed since the 1990s and has progressed since then in Uganda’s neighbouring countries and Central Africa. The severe CMD phenotype is caused by the synergistic interaction between ACMV and a distinct recombinant strain EACMV-UG, commonly known as the Uganda variant. CMD is reported to be widespread in Burkina Faso (Konaté et al., 1995), but the molecular features of the causal agent have never been investigated. In August/September 2008, leaves were collected from cultivars of local cassava presenting moderate to severe CMD symptoms from the central region around Ouagadougou. Ten leaf samples were tested and found to be positive for the presence of begomoviruses by PCR, using degenerate primers VD360 and CD1266 (Delatte et al., 2005). For two of these samples, complete DNA-A genomes were cloned using the Phi29 DNA polymerase-based rolling circle amplification strategy (Inoue-Nagata et al., 2004) and sequenced by Macrogen Inc. (Korea). One sequence (EMBL-GenBank-DDBJ Accession No. FM877473) showed 97% highest nucleotide identity with ACMV-[Ivory Coast:1999] (AF259894) and ACMV-[Nigeria:Ogoroco:1990] (AJ427910). The second sequence (FM877474) showed 98% nucleotide identity with EACMV-UG [Uganda:Severe2:1997] (AF126806). This is the first report of the Uganda variant in West Africa. These results show that both species ACMV and EACMV-UG affect cassava plantings in Burkina Faso, and suggest a potential risk of the occurrence of a severe epidemic of CMD as in East Africa. Acknowledgements This research was funded by the following institutions: CRSBAN/UFR-SVT (University of Ouagadougou), INERA (CNRST, Burkina Faso), Conseil Régional de La Réunion, CIRAD, European Union (FEDER) and GIS Centre de recherche et de veille sanitaire sur les maladies émergentes dans l’Océan Indien (N°PRAO/AIRD/CRVOI/08/03). References Bull SE, Briddon RW, Sserubombwe WS, Ngugi K, Markham PG, Stanley J, 2006. Genetic diversity and phylogeography of cassava mosaic viruses in Kenya. Journal of General Virology 87, 3053–65. Delatte H, Martin DP, Naze F et al., 2005. South West Indian Ocean islands tomato begomovirus populations represent a new major monopartite begomovirus group. Journal of General Virology 86, 1533–42. Inoue-Nagata AK, Albuquerque LC, Rocha WB, Nagata T, 2004. A simple method for cloning the complete begomovirus genome using the bacteriophage ϕ29 DNA polymerase. Journal of Virological Methods 116, 209–11. Konaté G, Barro N, Fargette D, Swanson MM, Harrison BD, 1995. Occurrence of whitefly-transmitted geminiviruses in crops in Burkina Faso and their serological detection and differentiation. Annals of Applied Biology 126, 121–9. *E-mail: lett@cirad.fr. Accepted 25 March 2009 at www.bspp.org.uk/ndr where figures relating to this paper can be viewed. Plant Pathology (2009) 58, 783 Doi: 10.1111/j.1365-3059.2009.02108.x Blackwell Publishing Ltd Watermelon mosaic virus reported for the first time in Poland N. Borodynko*, B. Hasiów-Jaroszewska, N. Rymelska and H. Pospieszny Department of Virology and Bacteriology, Institute of Plant Protection-National Research Institute, 60-318 Pozna5, W. Wegorka 20, Poland Watermelon mosaic virus (WMV) is a member of the genus Potyvirus (family Potyviridae) and consists of flexuous, filamentous particles, approximately 750 nm long. The virus can cause economically important diseases in several horticultural crops, mostly cucurbits and legumes, resulting in quality and yield losses. WMV can experimentally infect more than 170 plant species belonging to 27 families, including many weeds that can host the virus between crops. The geographical occurrence of the virus is patchy and depends on climatic conditions. So far in Europe it has been only detected in southern countries, i.e. Croatia, France, Italy and Slovakia (Desbiez et al., 2007). In 2008, fifteen samples of zucchini plants with mosaic symptoms on the leaves were collected from three fields in Poland. All samples were analyzed by DAS-ELISA with commercial antisera for the detection of WMV, Zucchini yellow mosaic virus (ZYMV) and Papaya ringspot virus (PRSV) (DSMZ, Braunschweig, Germany). WMV was found in every sample tested. There were no positive reactions using antisera to ZYMV and PRSV. WMV in samples testing positive by ELISA was confirmed by RT-PCR. Total RNA was extracted by a phenol-chloroform method from fresh, infected zucchini leaves. RNA samples were tested for the presence of WMV using specific primers designed to amplify a fragment of the coat protein gene (Sharifi et al., 2008). PCR products were cloned into the pGEM-T Easy Vector (Promega) and sequenced. Sequences were com- pared to data available in GenBank. An 822-nt amplicon was obtained (GenBank Accession No. FJ628395). This had 98% nt sequence identity with WMV sequences from China and Korea (EF127832 and AB369278, respectively) and only 93% nucleotide sequence identity with WMV sequences from France and Pakistan (AY437609 and AB127934, respectively) (Desbiez & Lecoq, 2008). This is the first report of the natural occurrence of WMV in Poland. References Desbiez C, Lecoq H, 2008. Evidence for multiple intraspecific recombinants in natural populations of Watermelon mosaic virus (WMV, Potyvirus). Archives of Virology 153, 1749–54. Desbiez C, Costa C, Wipf-Scheibel C, Girard M, Lecoq H, 2007. Serological and molecular variability of watermelon mosaic virus (genus Potyvirus). Archives of Virology 152, 775–81. Sharifi M, Massumi H, Heydarnejad J, Pour AH, Shaabanian M, Rahimian H, 2008. Analysis of the biological and molecular variability of Watermelon mosaic virus isolates from Iran. Virus Genes 37, 304–13. *E-mail: n.borodynko@ior.poznan.pl. Accepted 25 March 2009 at www.bspp.org.uk/ndr where figures relating to this paper can be viewed.