A NEW VIRUS-DISEASE IN NORTH-AMERICA CAUSED BY TOBACCO VEIN-BANDING MOSAIC-VIRUS

In 1990, during a survey of six commercial and experimental burley tobaccos in Greene County, TN, 10 virus isolates from 70 samples collected from two separate tobacco fields were recovered that did not react with antisera to viruses common to tobacco in the region. Inclusion bodies observed by light microscopy in leaf tissue of tobacco cultivar TN 86 inoculated with two of these 10 isolates were characteristic of those found in cells infected with a potyvirus. Electron micrographs of partially purified virions from these same inoculated plants and electrophoresis of capsid protein and RNA from purified virions of one isolate (17-41) also suggested a potyvirus was involved. Tests by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay with all 10 virus isolates were positive with antiserum to tobacco vein-banding mosaic virus (TVBMV), a virus originally identified in Taiwan in 1966. In a host range study, TVBMV infected only species within the Solanaceae. Resistance was not found in any burley tobacco tested. This is the first time TVBMV has been identified and described from North America. Because no resistance was observed with any commercial tobacco tested, TVBMV may present a new problem to tobacco production in the eastern United States. More extensive host range studies with commercial cultivars of tomato are needed, because TVBMV is a potential problem for tomato production as well.