First Report of Banana mild mosaic virus Isolated from Plantains (Musa AAB) in Colombia

Plantains (Musa AAB) are important sources of food and income for millions of people in Colombia and other developing countries. Colombia is the largest producer of plantains (2) and the third largest exporter of bananas in the world. In 2001, plants of ‘Dominico-Hartón’ plantain showing mild chlorotic streak symptoms were observed in northwestern Colombia. Electron microscopy of symptomatic tissue extracts revealed the presence of filamentous virus-like particles approximately 800 nm long. Immunocapture reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction was performed to test for the presence of Banana mild mosaic virus (BanMMV) as described by J. E. Thomas (unpublished, Queensland Department of Primary Industries, Australia) and Sharman et al. (3). For polymerase chain reaction (PCR), the upstream primer No. 193 (5′-CAC TTA GGT TTG TGT GAT GT-3′) (designed in this study by using the computer Program DNAMAN Version 4.13) and the downstream primer Poty1 (5′-GGA TCC CGG GTT TTT TTT TTT TTT TTT V-3′) (1,3; J. E. Thomas, unpublished, Queensland Department of Primary Industries, Australia) were used. Amplification products of the expected size (approximately 900 bp) were obtained and sequenced after cloning in a pCR2.1 plasmid vector. Analyses of nucleic acid sequences using the international sequence databases and the BLAST program yielded nucleotide and amino acid sequence similarities of 80 to 83% and 90 to 92%, respectively, with an Australian isolate of BanMMV (GenBank Accession No. AF314662). The coat protein (CP) gene of the Colombian BanMMV isolate consists of 717 nucleotides. When the CP of the Colombian BanMMV isolates (GenBank Accession Nos. AY319331, AY319332, and AY319333) was compared with the CP of the Australian isolate, a highly variable region was observed in the N-terminus region. To our knowledge, this is the first report of BanMMV isolated from plantains in Colombia and the presence of molecular variability in the CP of BanMMV isolates. BanMMV has been found in Colombia associated with Banana streak virus and Cucumber mosaic virus in plantain.