First Report of Citrus vein enation virus(CVEV) infrom Iran

Citrus vein enationon the leaf underside and trunkwoody gall diseasecaused by Citrus vein enation virus(CVEV)has been reported from citrus growing areas of the five continents of the world(Wallace and Drake, 1961). Symptoms closely similar to these have been observed on sour orange (Citrus aurantium) and key lime(Citrus aurantifolia)trees of Golestan, Mazandaran and Fars provinces in Iran. To determine the presence of CVEV in Iran, asour orange tree showing typical disease symptomswas chosen in Sari,total RNA was extracted from fresh bark of sampleand used in RT-PCR to amplify 3' genomic region of the virus by using specific primer pairs(Viveset al. 2013). Following cloning and bidirectional sequencing of amplified fragments, the overlapping reads were assembled into a 2800 bpcontig.Multiple nucleotide sequence alignment of obtained contigwith sequences of CVEV isolates deposited in the GenBank (VE-1, PV52-IVIA and RR-IVIA isolates) was performed by DNASTAR and Clustal X programs. The results showed this isolate of the virus has more than 97% identity with GenBank isolates at nucleotide level. The coat protein region showed the highest homology with VE-1 as 97.6 and 95.5% identity in nucleotide and deduced amino acid sequence, respectively. Based on the results,this isolate was designated as CVEV-Irwhich full genome sequencing is in progress. This is the first report of the Citrus vein enation virus occurrence in Iran.