Skip to main content
ARS Home » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #205068
Title: Recovery of four novel Potato spindle tuber viroid sequence variants from Russian seed potatoes

Author
item KASTALYEVA, T - RUSSIAN INST OF PHYTO
item MOZHAEVA, K - RUSSIAN INST OF PHYTO
item Thompson, Susan
item Clark, John
item Owens, Robert

Submitted to: Plant Disease
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 1/16/2007
Publication Date: 4/1/2007
Citation: Kastalyeva, T., Mozhaeva, K., Thompson, S.M., Clark, J.R., Owens, R.A. 2007. Recovery of four novel Potato spindle tuber viroid sequence variants from Russian seed potatoes. Plant Disease. 91:469.

Interpretive Summary: Viroids are the smallest known agents of infectious disease – small, circular RNA molecules that lack the coat protein characteristic of most conventional viruses yet are able to multiply and cause disease in susceptible host plants. Potato spindle tuber viroid (PSTVd) has been virtually eliminated from seed potato production in North America and Europe by systematic testing. In Russia and other parts of former Soviet Union, the widespread use of tissue culture to produce virus-free plants in the absence of adequate testing for the possible presence of PSTVd has resulted in a dramatic drop in the yield and quality of seed potatoes. A three-year grant has been obtained from the International Science and Technology Program to work with scientists at the All Russian Research Institute of Plant Pathology (VNIIF) to develop the diagnostic methods necessary to address this situation. This initial report describes the results deom preliminary tests identifying four new PSTVd viroids from the Russian collection. This publication will be of greatest interest to APHIS scientists and others responsible for quarantine and other regulatory actions.

Technical Abstract: Symptoms of potato “gothic” disease resemble those of Potato spindle tuber viroid (PSTVd), but its limited distribution in European Russia made the disease of little economic significance in European Russia until the early 1970’s when meristem tip culture was widely adopted throughout the former USSR to increase production of virus-free seed potatoes. Initial suspicions that in vitro plantlets and seed potatoes might be viroid infected were later proved correct when Kastalyeva et al. showed that approximately 50-70% of in vitro plantlets and tubers collected from different regions of Russia as well as the in vitro germplasm collection maintained by the All-Russian Potato Research Institute (ARPRI) were infected with PSTVd. This manuscript reports the nucleotide sequences of four previously unknown PSTVd variants (GenBank Accessions EF044302-EF044305) collected in Leningradskaya (Northwest Russia) and Samarskaya (Volga River region) provinces. Additional sequencing studies with a wider range of PSTVd isolates are currently underway to more accurately assess sequence diversity among Russian isolates of PSTVd.