Virome Profiling, New Virus Identification and the Prevalence and Distribution of Viruses Infecting Chieh-Qua (Benincasa hispida Cogn. var. chieh-qua How) in China

Haiyan Che; Yuxin Ma; Yating Lin; Tuizi Feng; Daquan Luo; Haibo Long

doi:10.3390/v15061396

Virome Profiling, New Virus Identification and the Prevalence and Distribution of Viruses Infecting Chieh-Qua (Benincasa hispida Cogn. var. chieh-qua How) in China

Viruses. 2023 Jun 19;15(6):1396. doi: 10.3390/v15061396.

Authors

Haiyan Che^{1

2}, Yuxin Ma^{1

2}, Yating Lin^{1

2}, Tuizi Feng^{1

2}, Daquan Luo^{1

2}, Haibo Long^{1

3}

Affiliations

¹ Environment and Plant Protection Institute, Chinese Academy of Tropical Agricultural Sciences, Haikou 571101, China.
² Key Laboratory of Pests Comprehensive Governance for Tropical Crops, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Haikou 571101, China.
³ Hainan Key Laboratory for Monitoring and Control of Tropical Agricultural Pests, Haikou 571101, China.

Abstract

The cucurbit vegetable chieh-qua (Benincasa hispida var. chieh-qua How) is an important crop in South China and southeast Asian countries. Viral diseases cause substantial loss of chieh-qua yield. To identify the viruses that affect chieh-qua in China, ribosomal RNA-depleted total RNA sequencing was performed using chieh-qua leaf samples with typical viral symptoms. The virome of chieh-qua comprises four known viruses (melon yellow spot virus (MYSV), cucurbit chlorotic yellows virus (CCYV), papaya ringspot virus (PRSV) and watermelon silver mottle virus (WSMoV) and two novel viruses: cucurbit chlorotic virus (CuCV) in the genus Crinivirus and chieh-qua endornavirus (CqEV) in the genus Alphaendornavirus. The complete genomes of the two novel viruses in chieh-qua and three other isolates of CuCV in pumpkin, watermelon and cucumber were determined and the recombination signals of pumpkin and watermelon isolates of CuCV were detected. A reverse transcriptase PCR indicated that the dominant viruses of chieh-qua in Hainan are MYSV (66.67%) and CCYV (55.56%), followed by CuCV (27.41%), WSMoV (7.41%), cucumber mosaic virus (8.15%), zucchini yellow mosaic virus (6.67%), PRSV (6.67%) and CqEV (35.56%). Our findings support diagnostic and prevalence studies of viruses infecting chieh-qua in China, enabling sustainable control strategies for cucurbit viruses worldwide.

Keywords: Alphaendornavirus; Crinivirus; Cucumovirus; Orthotospovirus; Potyvirus; chieh-qua; high-throughput sequencing; novel viruses; viral disease.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Cucumis sativus*
Cucurbita*
Cucurbitaceae*
Prevalence
Virome

Supplementary concepts

Papaya ringspot virus

Grants and funding

This research was funded by the Hainan Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China, grant Number 2019RC284; the Central Public-Interest Scientific Institution Basal Research Fund for Chinese Academy of Tropical Agricultural Sciences, grant Number No. 1630042019001; the National Natural Science Foundation of China, grant number 32102182.