Molecular pathological interactions between Apple stem grooving virus (ASGV) and its fungi.

Apple stem grooving virus (ASGV) belongs to Capillovirus and infects pome fruits. Transmission mode of ASGV is known by grafting and mechanical inoculation into susceptible hosts, not by any other natural vectors. But we have observed the spread of ASGV in the field without mechanical inoculation or grafting. Transmission seems to be occurred from tree-to-tree and tree-to-susceptible herbaceous plants along but not across ditches in the field. In order to ascertain this possibility, various fungi were isolated and cultured from ASGV-infected plants and 69 isolates were characterized. By means of RNA dot-blot hybridization and PCR analysis, 3 isolates were sorted out for further studies. The isolates were identified to Tataromyces sp. and belonged to Phenicillium by morphological characteristics and molecular markers. As an experimental host, 10 kidney beans (Phaseolus vulgaris) were screened and Kyunggi-5 was selected for virus amplification and symptom development. Kyunggj-5 infected by fungi which seemed to carry ASGV showed the typical disease symptoms and viral coat protein genes were detected from all tested plants. To confirm the Koch's rule, fungi cultured from inoculation origins of kidney bean were grown on PDA media and re-inoculated to hosts. The fungi isolated from inoculation origins induced the typical disease symptoms on hosts. However virus free fungi did not induce any symptom on the experimental hosts. This bioassay showed that these typical symptoms were caused by virus, not fungi.