Comparison by Sequence-Based and Electron Microscopic Analyses of Fig mosaic virus Isolates Obtained from Field and Experimentally Inoculated Fig Plants

Fig mosaic disease (FMD) and the fig mite, Aceria ficus, are widespread in different fig growing provinces of Turkey. Fig trees (Ficus carica) cv. Bursa siyahi (D1) and an unknown seedling (D2) that showed typical FMD symptoms and was heavily infested by fig mites were used as donor plants for attempted mite transmissions to healthy fig seedlings. Transmission electron microscopy observations of donor plant samples prior to the transmission tests were performed and showed the presence of double membrane bodies (DMBs) in the palisade mesophyll cells. Electron microscopy of all experimentally inoculated fig seedlings showed the same bodies. This result reinforced the suggestion that an agent that elicits the production of DMBs in infected cells is involved in the etiology of FMD. Double-stranded (ds)RNA analyses were also performed from experimentally inoculated plants, and dsRNAs with sizes approximately 1.30 and 1.96 kb were obtained. Reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) products of 468 and 298 bp specific to Fig mosaic virus (FMV) were amplified from both donor and experimentally inoculated plants. BLAST analyses of nucleotide sequences of these fragments showed 90% identity with FMV for the donor plant and 94 to 96% for experimentally inoculated plants. According to these results, FMV is present in both donor and experimentally inoculated plants in Turkey, and this virus is transmissible by A. ficus from fig plant to fig plant.