Molecular identification of a new isolate of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Cucumber mosaic virus</Emphasis> subgroup II from basil (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Ocimum sanctum</Emphasis>) in India

Natural occurrence of mosaic disease was observed on basil (Ocimum sanctum L.) in Aligarh, U. P., India, during 2008. The disease could be transmitted by sap inoculations from naturally infected O. sanctum to O. sanctum and some test plant species. Cucumber mosaic virus (CMV) was detected by RT-PCR using coat protein gene specific primers of CMV (Acc. AM180922 & AM180923), which resulted in the expected size ~650 bp amplicon in infected samples. The amplicon was cloned, sequenced and data were deposited in GenBank Acc. EU600216. The sequence data analysis revealed 97–99% identities at both nucleotide and amino acid levels with the CMV strains of subgroup II reported worldwide. Based on the high sequence identities and close phylogenetic relationships with CMV subgroup II strains, the virus under study has been identified as a new isolate of CMV subgroup II and designated as CMV-Basil.