Efeitos de extratos de plantas e de reagentes químicos sobre Papaya lethal yellowing virus e sua movimentação em mamoeiro.

Abstract

Papaya (Carica papaya) is an important tropical fruit crop and its production is increasing every year in Northeastern Brazil. Papaya lethal yellowing virus (PLYV) is found infecting papaya only in Northeastern Brazil where it has become a serious problem for the papaya producers. PLYV is very stable and it can be readily transmitted by human actions including contaminated hands, agricultural tools, soil and irrigation water. The present study had the objective to evaluate the effects of chemical products and the extracts from 23 medicinal plants on the infectivity of PLYV in greenhouse experiments; to determine the distribution and movement of PLYV in mechanically inoculated plants and evaluate its interaction with Papaya ringspot virus (PRSV). Extracts from PLYV infected plants were mixed with equal amount of either one of the following chemical products: alcohol, n-butanol, commercial liquid soap, Triton X-100, sodium dodecilsulfate (SDS), sodium hypochlorite and sodium carbonate, and with equal amount of extracts from 23 medicinal plant species. The mixtures were incubated for 30 min at room temperature and mechanically inoculated in healthy papaya. Equal amounts of tissue from each part of papaya plants inoculated with PLYV were serologically evaluated to demonstrate how long the virus takes to infect systemically inoculated plants. According to the results only SDS, sodium hypochlorite and sodium carbonate inactivated the virus, but SDS caused damage in the plants and carbonate caused small whitish points on the treated leaves. On the other hand, neither one of the used medicinal plant extracts inactivated completely the PLYV infectivity, but extracts from Schinus terebinthifolius inhibited the symptoms induced by the virus. Those results demonstrated the importance of sodium hypochlorite to inactivate PLYV in contaminated agriculture tools. The presence of PLYV in inoculated plants was serologically detected three to four days after inoculation in the inoculated leaves, only after six days in the stem, ten days in the roots, 15 days in the younger leaves and the plants were systemically infected only 25 to 30 days after inoculation. Host range studies confirmed that PLYV does not infect plant species from the families: Amaranthaceae, Brassicaceae, Fabaceae, Pedaliaceae and Solanaceae, neither cause local lesions in Chenopodium amaranticolor; C. murale and C. quinoa. Interaction studies indicated a synergistic effect between PLYV and PRSV in papaya. The technique of RT-PCR immunoprecipitation (IP-RT-PCR) has proven to be practical and specific for amplification of PLYV RNA, reducing problems of contamination with plant RNAs.