Detection of Soybean Mosaic Virus Using RT - PCR

Reverse transcription and polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) assay was used to detect SMV strains. A pair of oligonucleotide primers were designed to include the cylindrical inclusion (CI) coding region between 4,176 to 5,560 nt. Amplification from the total RNA extracted from infected plants with SMV yielded a 1,385 by DNA fragment. RT-PCR was shown to be 10³ times more sensitive than the ELISA assay and it could detect a virus in 10^(-6) dilution. Restriction enzyme analysis of RT- PCR products using EcoR I showed that 5MV isolates were classified into six groups according to the patterns of restriction fragments.