www.metla.fi/silvafennica · ISSN 0037-5330 The Finnish Society of Forest Science · The Finnish Forest Research Institute SILVA FENNICA Silva Fennica 43(5) research articles Cherry leaf roll virus – an Emerging Virus in Finland?

Cherry leaf roll virus, CLRV, is a plant pathogen that infects a variety of deciduous trees and shrubs in temperate regions. Little is known about its occurrence at high latitudes and especially in Finnish birch species. Still, symptoms that seemed to be associated with CLRV such as vein banding, le...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Susanne Von Bargen, Elise Grubits, Risto Jalkanen, Carmen Büttner
Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
Format: Text
Language:English
Subjects:
Betula pendula
Betula pubescens
IC-RT-PCR
3 ´ non-coding region
Kiilopää
Dwarf birch
Online Access:http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.584.3787
http://www.metla.fi/silvafennica/full/sf43/sf435727.pdf
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Summary:Cherry leaf roll virus, CLRV, is a plant pathogen that infects a variety of deciduous trees and shrubs in temperate regions. Little is known about its occurrence at high latitudes and especially in Finnish birch species. Still, symptoms that seemed to be associated with CLRV such as vein banding, leaf roll and decline have been observed in birch trees throughout the country since the summer of 2002. Six different birch species, subspecies or varieties, i.e. Betula pubescens subsp. pubescens (downy birch), B. pendula (silver birch), B. nana (dwarf birch), B. pubescens var. appressa (Kiilopää birch), B. pubescens subsp. czerepanovii (moun-tain birch) and B. pendula var. carelica (curly birch) originating from all over Finland were assessed by immunocapture-reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (IC-RT-PCR) for CLRV infection. It was shown that CLRV is widely distributed in B. pendula and B. pubescens throughout the country. Furthermore, dwarf birch, mountain birch, Kiilopää birch and curly birch were confirmed to be previously unkown hosts of CLRV. Genetic analysis of virus sequence variants originating from Finnish birch trees revealed atypical phylogenetic relationships. In contrast to CLRV isolates from birches growing in the United Kingdom and Germany which clustered exclusively within group A, Finnish CLRV isolates belonged either to group B, D or E. Thus, virus population structure in Finnish birches seems to be more variable and host plant dependency seems not to apply for Finnish CLRV isolates.

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