PJB-2019-442
ELIMINATION OF GRAPEVINE LEAFROLL ASSOCIATED VIRUSES (GLRaVs) FROM VITIS VINIFERA CULTIVARS OF PAKISTAN BY MERISTEM CULTURE
SUNNIYA RASOOL
Abstract
Meristem culture has become a powerful and successful technique for virus elimination from infected plants and has been successfully applied in grapevine. A total of nine grapevine (Vitis vinfera L.) cultivars that grown in Pakistan were selected and subjected to TaqMan RT-PCR assay for detection of grapevine leafroll virus infection. The observed percentage of infection was 11.1%, 77.7 %, 55.5%, 55.5%, 33.3%, 22.2%, 33.3%, 33.3%, 55.5% for GLRaV-1, GLRaV-2, GLRaV-2RG, GLRaV-3, GLRaV-4, GLRaV-5, GLRaV-6, GLRaV-7 and GLRaV-Pr, respectively. GLRaV- 9 and –car were negative for all cultivars. Meristem culture was applied for the eradication of Grapevine leafroll-associated viruses by excising apical meristem of 0.5mm of infected vines. Results of shoots and roots development indicated that medium supplemented with 1.0 mg/l of BAP was the best for shoots length (0.7 cm), concentration of rooting hormone 0.1 (mg/L) showed the best root length as: root length (3.5cm), and number of roots (5). The Acclimatization of the plantlets that generated from in vitro shoots and roots multiplication stage revealed 90% of successful growth rate with all grapevine cultivars. TaqMan RT-PCR was used to check the sanitary conditions for the screening of GLRaVs and results showed complete eradication of GLRaVs in all cultivars. Overall, this is the first study on the elimination of leafroll viruses from grapevine cultivars in Pakistan by excising apical meristem.
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