Identification and characterization of wheat dwarf virus from France using a rapid method for geminivirus DNA preparation

Using molecular analyses, we identified wheat dwarf geminivirus (WDV), a leafhopper-transmitted geminivirus prevalent in northern and eastern Europe, as the causative agent of a recent wheat dwarf outbreak in France. A novel, simple, and rapid method for purification of circular DNA from small amounts of plant tissue was described and was applied to clone the genome of WDV-F. The cloned WDV-F DNA was shown to be infectious on wheat (Triticum aestivum) following agroinoculation, and progeny virus was transmitted by leafhoppers. The DNA sequence of the WDV-F genome consists of 2,750 bases, differs by only 1.3 and 1.4% from the WDV isolates from Sweden and Czechoslovakia, respectively, and represents a new isolate of WDV.