The complete sequence of a papaya ringspot virus (PRSV) isolate from West Bengal, India infecting papaya and study of genetic variation

Papaya ringspot virus (PRSV) is one of the important pathogens responsible for damage of the papaya crop and causes significant yield loss of fruits and vegetable worldwide and hence a serious threat. In this study, PRSV-infected plant samples collected from different locations in North 24 Parganas districts of West Bengal, were tested with potyvirus specific ELISA and further confirmed with potyvirus group specific degenerate primers by RT PCR, TEM and sequence analysis. Our result indicates that the disease symptoms occurred in 80–100% of the plant in the field surveyed. The complete sequence of PRSV isolate WB was determined from RT-PCR products with specific primer pairs designed covering the whole genome and confirmed by next-generation sequencing. The whole genome of the PRSV was determined and submitted to GenBank as accession no. LC482263. The sequence of PRSV-WB (10,340 bp) was found to share upto 90% and 93%, identity with other PRSV isolates at the nucleotide and amino acid levels respectively. Based on phylogenetic analysis, PRSV- WB was found to be most closely related to PRSV-BD2 (MH397222) from papaya in Bangladesh (geographically close).