Genomic, morphological and biological traits of the viruses infecting major fruit trees
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Banana trees, citrus fruit trees, pome fruit trees, grapevines, mango trees, and stone fruit trees are major fruit trees cultured worldwide and correspond to nearly 90% of the global production of woody fruit trees. In light of the above, the present manuscript summarizes the viruses that infect the major fruit trees, including their taxonomy and morphology, and highlights selected viruses that significantly affect fruit production, including their genomic and biological features. The results showed that a total of 163 viruses, belonging to 45 genera classified into 23 families have been reported to infect the major woody fruit trees. It is clear that there is higher accumulation of viruses in grapevine (80/163) compared to the other fruit trees (each corresponding to less than 35/163), while only one virus species has been reported infecting mango. Most of the viruses (over 70%) infecting woody fruit trees are positive-sense single-stranded RNA (+ssRNA), and the remainder belong to the -ssRNA, ssRNA-RT, dsRNA, ssDNA and dsDNA-RT groups (each corresponding to less than 8%). Most of the viruses are icosahedral or isometric (79/163), and their diameter ranges from 16 to 80 nm with the majority being 25–30 nm. Cross-infection has occurred in a high frequency among pome and stone fruit trees, whereas no or little cross-infection has occurred among banana, citrus and grapevine. The viruses infecting woody fruit trees are mostly transmitted by vegetative propagation, grafting, and root grafting in orchards and are usually vectored by mealybug, soft scale, aphids, mites or thrips. These viruses cause adverse effects in their fruit tree hosts, inducing a wide range of symptoms and significant damage, such as reduced yield, quality, vigor and longevity.
Date Issued
2019-06
Date Acceptance
2019-05-31
Citation
Viruses, 2019, 11 (6)
ISSN
1999-4915
Publisher
MDPI AG
Journal / Book Title
Viruses
Volume
11
Issue
6
Copyright Statement
© 2019 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
License URL
Identifier
https://www.webofscience.com/api/gateway?GWVersion=2&SrcApp=PARTNER_APP&SrcAuth=LinksAMR&KeyUT=WOS:000475308000033&DestLinkType=FullRecord&DestApp=ALL_WOS&UsrCustomerID=a2bf6146997ec60c407a63945d4e92bb
Subjects
BANANA
biological features
CALIFORNIA
CITRUS
DISEASES
DWARF
fruit trees
GRAPEVINE-FANLEAF-VIRUS
IDENTIFICATION
Life Sciences & Biomedicine
PLUM-POX-VIRUS
Science & Technology
taxonomy
TRANSMISSION
VEIN-CLEARING-VIRUS
viral disease
viral genome
virion morphology
Virology
virus
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
515
Date Publish Online
2019-06-04