Purification, serology, and some properties of a mechanically transmissible virus associated with green ring mottle disease in peach and cherry

Abstract

Thin, flexuous, rod-shaped viruslike particles were purified from peach and cherry trees affected by green ring mottle disease. Purified particles ranged from 1,000 to 2,000 nm in length and were 5-6 nm in diameter. The presence of fibrillar inclusions in infected cells, together with virion properties such as buoyant density (1.24-1.25 g/cm ) and nucleic acid and capsid protein molecular weights (2.5 × 10 and 2.5 × 10 , respectively), are properties the virus shares with some closteroviruses. Direct and indirect enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) readily detected the virus in various Prunus spp. A disease resembling green ring mottle was reproduced in cultivar Montmorency sour cherry trees after slash inoculation with purified virus, and the thin viruslike particles were detected by direct ELISA and electron microscopy in these plants. © 1989 The American Phytopathological Society. 3 6 4