First report of cucumber mosaic virus infecting antamul vine (Tylophora indica) in India

Tylophora indica (Burm f.) Merrill; commonly known as antamul, is an important medicinal herb. Typical yellow rings or irregular yellow spot and in severe condition necrotic rings were observed on the leaves of the crop. The examination of symptomatic leaf samples under transmission electron microscopy revealed the presence of spherical virions confirmed the association of cucumo like virus group. A novel degenerate primers pair was designed by multiple sequence alignment of RdRP region and used in RT-PCR to amplify a ~ 410 bp genomic fragment. The sequence of the amplified fragment shared 97–98% sequence identity with cucumber mosaic virus (CMV). This study is the first report of the association of CMV with the yellow ring symptom of antamul in India.