Occurrence of Mulberry Mosaic Virus in Egypt

Abstract

Appearance of mosaic, yellowing and malformation symptoms were on Mulberry leaves were collected during spring 2012 from Faculty of Agriculture farm, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt. Viral assay on the sensitive host, Phaseolus vulgaris, appeared presence of virus-like symptom with narrow host range. Electron microscopy studies of healthy and infected ultrathin sections of mulberry leaves revealed that, the detected virus-like disease had affected the plant cell structure of infected tissue. Particle size and morphology of mosaic symptoms of mulberry was examined by transmission electron microscopy. The viral mosaic symptom was icosahedral in symmetry and double capsid with diameter 70 nm while the inner core with 50nm in diameter. According to its morphology and size may be related to family Reoviridae. Isozyme polymorphism of the healthy and infected plants was studied. Ideogram of peroxidase, α-esterase and β-esterase isozymes showed various differences between healthy and infected samples. To our knowledge, this is the first report of mosaic virus-infected mulberry tree in Egypt.