Guidelines
CELL LINES
PLANT CELL LINES
PLANT VIRUSES
PLASMIDS
PHAGES
MICROORGANISMS
GENOMIC LIBRARIES
PROCEDURES
CATALOGUE
LABORATORY PROCEDURES FOR PLANT CELL VIRUSES
Appendix
PVC/1998/2.02 Appendix 4
TRANSMISSION OF VIRUSES TO VIRUS HOST PLANTS BY INSECT VECTORS
INTRODUCTION
Insects serve as vectors to transmit and spread viruses in the field. Insect transmissions are performed when certain viruses, e.g. luteoviruses, are non mechanically transmissible or, when viruses occurring in mixed infections, need to be cleaned up by differential transmission using insects. Furthermore, upon prolonged mechanical transmissions, certain viruses loose their transmissibility by insects and therefore, after serial passages, need to be transmitted by insects to maintain this function.
The green peach aphid – Myzus persicae - is routinely used to transmit potyviruses and luteoviruses. By regulating the acquisition access periods and the retention times, a differential transmission can be realised since potyviruses are non persistently transmissible whereas luteoviruses are transmitted in a persistent manner. For transmission of other viruses the sweet potato whitefly – Bemisia tabacci or the onion mite Aceria tulipae K . are used. Each insect species is specialised in transmission of members of a virus group, however, since all insects require special treatments for maintenance and transmission experiments, only the routinely performed M.persicae vector transmission is described in the procedures.
PROCEDURE
Myzus persicae cultures are maintained on rape or tulip plants in insect proof cages under greenhouse conditions at 20-25 °C and 16 h day periods.
The aphids are collected from their cultures and kept in a petri dish for a 2 h hunger period. Infected plant material is added to the petri dish and acquisition access period is for 1 h. After the acquisition period, sucking aphids are transferred to healthy test plants using a fine paint brush. After an additional 1 h for virus transmission to the plants, a pesticide is applied to kill the aphids.
Guidelines prepared for CABRI by DSMZ, 3 Feb. 1998
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