Reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) for detection of cucumber mosaic virus isolates

Cucumber mosaic cucumovirus (CMV) causing many diseases and severe economic losses in vegetable, forage, ornamental and fruit crops worldwide has been identified in Lithuania from big variety of plant species on the basis of determination of host range, symptoms expression, morphological and serological properties of the virus isolates. In this work the primers designed on the bases of published sequences were applied for amplification of CMV DNA fragments in RT-PCR using different plant sources of the CMV and various storage duration. This confirmed results obtained by investigating host range, virus morphological properties and results of serological reactions. RT-PCR method for virus detection and identification is less time consuming and labour intensive in comparison with preivious methods.