Two Field Isolates of Tomato Spotted Wilt Tospovirus Overcome the Hypersensitive Response of a Pepper (Capsicum annuum) Hybrid with Resistance Introgressed from C. chinense PI152225.

The hypersensitive response to tomato spotted wilt tospovirus (TSWV) present in Capsicum chinense PI152225 (1) was introgressed into C. annuum cultivars. During the summer of 1998, a hybrid with good agronomic performance was grown in glasshouses in Albenga, Liguzia Region of northwestern Italy, an area where infection by TSWV in pepper has been severe since 1992. In August, observations of different susceptible cultivars revealed that >50% of plants had TSWV-like symptoms, whereas the resistant hybrid remained healthy, except for two plants that showed virus-like symptoms on apical leaves and fruits. From the infected plants, tospoviruses (coded P164/6 and P166) were transmitted by sap-inoculation to Nicotiana benthamiana. Triple-antibody sandwich enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay with a panel of monoclonal antibodies against the TSWV nucleocapsid, but with different reactivity to the related species groundnut ringspot (GRSV) and tomato chlorotic spot (TCSV) viruses, indicated the isolates were TSWV. The host ranges of the isolates were wide and typical of normal TSWV isolates. Thus, they incited typical symptoms in all 50 TSWV-susceptible C. annuum cv. Quadrato d'Asti plants. However, isolate P164/6 also systemically infected 12 of 27 C. chinense PI152225 and 14 of 19 C. chinense PI159236 plants. These accessions are normally resistant to TSWV (1). Isolate P166 systemically infected 7 of 17 C. chinense PI152225 and 6 of 11 C. chinense PI159236 plants. Systemically infected plants showed severe necrosis, and some plants died. Other plants showed only necrotic local lesions. The response by C. chinense differed from that caused by typical TSWV, which causes only local lesions, and from both GRSV and TCSV, which cause mosaic but no necrosis in 100% of plants. The two new TSWV isolates were tested for transmission using a local population of Frankliniella occidentalis in a leaf disk assay with susceptible C. annuum. Transmission rates were high: 93.7% (63 thrips) for isolate P164/6 and 89.9% (49 thrips) for P166. Thus, the fitness of the two TSWV resistance-breaking isolates (a wide experimental host range and high transmission rates by the natural vector) was as high as that of typical TSWV. The absence of systemic infection in some C. chinense PI152225 and PI159236 plants that are resistant to typical TSWV suggests the possibility of selecting plants resistant to these pathotypes. This is the first report of field tospovirus isolates typed as TSWV (according to the current taxonomy based on nucleocapsid serology) overcoming the hypersensitive response of C. chinense PI152225 and PI159236, an ability previously found only in closely related viruses: TCSV and GRSV (2). Other TSWV-like isolates systemic on C. chinense were not typed further (3,4). References: (1) L. L. Black et al. Plant Dis. 75:863, 1991. (2) L. S. Boiteux and A. C. DeAvila. Euphytica 75:139, 1994. (3) H. A. Hobbs et al. Plant Dis. 78:1220, 1994. (4) B. Moury et al. Euphytica 94:45, 1997.