First Report on Tomato bushy stunt virus Infecting Tomato in Korea

A new virus-like disease of tomato showing chlorotic spots, malformation and necrosis on leaves, and chlorotic blotching, rings, and necrosis on fruits was observed around Sacheon, Gyeongsangnam-do, Korea in 2004. Host range analysis could not differentiate 4 field isolates collected from tomatoes showing different symptoms but identified them as Tomato bushy stunt virus (TBSV). TBSV-tsf2 isolate induced symptoms in indicator plants similar to those caused by the TBSV-C, -S and -Nf. As the isolate could not systemically infect Chenopodium quinoa, the isolate might belong to the previously described TBSV-S isolate. TBSV-tsf2 isolate caused similar cytological alterations that were similar to that generally caused by previously reported TBSV isolates. TBSV-tsf2 isolate, however, could be considered to belong to new strain of TBSV because masses of small electron-dense patches that were not observed from the previously described TBSV. The complete nucleotide sequences of the genomic RNA of 4739 nt excluding non-translated sequences at both termini have been determined and compared to sequences of other TBSV strains. The complete nucleotide sequence identity among TBSV isolates was 98.9% to 99.7%, and to the other tombusviruses ranged from 80.8% to 94.9%. Comparison of the amino acid sequences all five ORFs with those of other TBSV strains shows a similar genomic organization, and high percentage of amino acid sequence homology with TBSV-Nf than TBSV-S isolate. Since the TBSV symptoms were only observed in Sacheon fields where imported seeds from Japan were planted, the TBSV incidence probably caused by the planting contaminated tomato seeds and thus require more through quarantine procedure to prevent settlement of TBSV in Korea. Altogether, these results support that the Korean isolate of TBSV infecting tomato might be new strain.