Sugarcane streak disease (SSD) is the most prevalent virus disease found on most sugarcane cultivars grown in Upper Egypt. Sugarcane streak geminivirus (SSV) is the causal agent of SSD. The virus is a phloem-limited and used to occur in low concentrations, therefore, its detection acquire reliable and sensitive techniques. In this study, the virus was detected at the levels of its protein as well as its nucleic acid using serological and molecular tools, respectively. In the case of serological level, the indirect double-antibody sandwich-ELISA (IDAS-ELISA) using polyclonal antibodies specific to SSV was used for virus detection in sap extracted obtained from 36 sugarcane samples of the cv. G85-37 exhibited virus-like symptoms. Results showed that a number of 13 out of the 36 samples represents positive ELISA values ranged from 1.520 to 1.880, at ratio of 36.11% while, the healthy one showed 0.390 at A 405 nm. In the case of molecular level, polymerase chain reaction (PCR), using two specific primers designed based on the nucleotide sequence of replicase gene resulting a band with a size of about 846 bp. Results showed that PCR was more sensitive than ELISA, because some samples that showed negative ELISA values were found to be positive when tested by PCR. This result may recommended the use of PCR as a sensitive molecular tool for plant virus detection. |
