Variation in the pathogenicity of two Turnip mosaic virus isolates in wild UK Brassica rapa provenances

Brassica rapa can be infected with Turnip mosaic virus (TuMV) as a result of manual inoculation or aphid transmission, but infected plants have not been found in the field. In this study, B. rapa plants grown from seed collected from two field sites in southern England were mechanically inoculated with one of two distinct isolates (pathotypes) of TuMV under glasshouse conditions. These had either been isolated from Brassica oleracea growing wild in Wales, (GBR 83, pathotype 3) or Dorset (GBR 98, pathotype 1). Use of ELISA as an index of infection in manually inoculated B. rapa showed that although seed provenance had a small effect on the proportion of plants infected, the biggest factor was the virus isolate. Both virus isolates infected both lines of B. rapa, but invaded at different rates, although both resulted in easily discernible symptoms. The severity of symptoms was not related to amounts of virus in the infected plants. A significantly greater proportion of plants were infected with GBR 83 at 45 days post-inoculation (d.p.i.) than GBR 98. but GBR 98 caused significantly more severe and obvious symptoms as well as greater mortality at 119 d.p.i., in plants from both sites than GBR 83.