Rapid detection of Potato leafroll virus and Potato virus Y by reverse transcription loop-mediated isothermal amplification method in north-east India

Potato leafroll virus (PLRV) and Potato virus Y (PVY) are two important viruses causing serious potato yield losses in the North-east region and other planting areas in India. As a consequence, it is urgent to develop an efficient and quick method for the identification and diagnosis in the field. The results presented here showed that the reverse transcription loop-mediated isothermal amplification (RT-LAMP) method was efficient and sensitive than reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) for the detection of PLRV and PVY. The RT-LAMP primers specifically targeted PLRV and PVY (including PVYO, PVYN, and PVYNTN strains) and resulted in typical sigmoidal amplification curves. Ten-fold serial dilutions of PLRV and PVY total RNA indicated that RT-LAMP is faster and at least a hundred times more sensitive than RT-PCR in detecting both the viruses. Additionally, samples that RT-PCR could not detect at a diluted concentration of 10(-3) and 10(-4) ng/mu l were identified by RT-LAMP. Thus, RT-LAMP offers many advantages over RT-PCR such as low cost and high accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity for the rapid diagnosis of plant virus diseases. In conclusion, the results highlighted the efficacy of the RT-LAMP method in quickly detecting PLRV and PVY in infected plants.