First report of <i>Cotton leaf curl Alabad virus</i> and the <i>Cotton leaf curl Multan virus</i> and <i>Cotton leaf curl Multan betasatellite</i> complex in <i>Hibiscus rosa‐sinensis</i> in Iran

The genus Begomovirus (family Geminiviridae) contains pathogens that infect economically important crops, including cassava, cotton, pepper, potato and tomato (Tabein et al., 2021). During 2019–2021, two hibiscus plants with begomovirus-like symptoms vein enation cup-shaped leaves (Figs. 1, 2) were observed in the botanical garden of Shahid Chamran University Ahvaz, Khuzestan Province, southwestern Iran. New obtained from cuttings diseased showed same (Fig. 3). To investigate cause disease, evaluated using RNA-Seq approach. Total RNA was extracted Column isolation kit (Denazist, Iran) according to manufacturer's instructions. library ready after end repair, adapter ligation, size selection, amplification purification TruSeq Stranded Library Preparation Kit Ribo-Zero depletion. Sequencing performed Illumina´s NovaSeq 6000 (Novogene, China) 150 bp length 6G data depth. Reads (41,872,710 reads) trimmed for adapters, ambiguous nucleotides low quality CLC genomics workbench 20 (Qiagen, Germany), default parameters: bases below 15 nt, maximum 2 Qscore ≤5 trimmed. Clean reads (41,849,488 mapped reference genome (GCA_019671005), then unmapped (3,321,246 assembled. A nucleotide BLAST contigs done Geneious version R10 (Biomatters, Zealand) (Ghorbani 2017). confirm detection viral fragments, total DNA tissues CTAB method subjected PCR specific primer pairs (Rojas 1993; Briddon 2002). Cotton leaf curl Alabad virus (CLCuAV) (2,732 bp), a Multan (CLCuMuV) partial sequence (1,626 bp) betasatellite (CLCuMuB) (915 assembled transcripts GenBank (Accession Nos. ON982790, OP080331 ON982789, respectively). CLCuAV had highest identity, 93.86%, isolate Pakistan (MH760431.1). percent identity matrix between full other begomoviruses calculated standard procedures SDT software. Iranian closest isolates 4). CLCuMuV CLCuMuB shared 96.82% 91.08% MK482365.1 (isolated H. rosa-sinensis Taiwan) HG428707.1 Gossypium hirsutum Pakistan), respectively. viruses major crop losses different hosts Asia. This is first identification its association CLCuMuV/CLCuMuB Recently, Bananej al. (2021) reported Gezira Tomato infecting papaya Baluchestan province, southeastern Further investigation begomovirus infections Iran are needed. research financially supported by (Grant No.SCU.AP1400.38686).