First report of <i>Tomato leaf curl New Delhi virus</i> infecting <i>Ricinus communis</i>

Castor bean (Ricinus communis) is a member of the family Euphorbiaceae and native to tropical regions. The seed source castor oil which has variety pharmaceutical industrial uses. In India, used in alternative medicine as laxative, purgative, for curing arthritis. affected by pathogens, both fungal (Karan, 1966) viral, including Cucumber mosaic virus (Raj et al., 2010) Olive latent 2 (Grieco 2002). During survey January 2020 Jalandhar region Punjab, northern R. communis plants were found show begomovirus-like leaf curling symptoms (Figure 1). Three diseased samples collected from different locations around though most observed during appeared have symptoms. Total DNA was extracted using DNeasy® Plant Mini Kit (Qiagen, Germany). subjected PCR begomovirus-specific primers AV494 AC1048 (Wyatt & Brown, 1996). performed with an initial denaturation at 94°C 5 minutes, followed 35 cycles 40 seconds, annealing 55°C extension 72°C 1 minute, final 10 minutes. Products expected size (c. 570 bp) obtained all three samples. amplicons sent Eurofins Genomic India (Bangalore) direct sequencing. A BLAST search showed that sequences had 99% identity number ToLCNDV isolates (GenBank Accession Nos. MT185657 MT185656). Novel designed amplify complete DNA-A isolate, ToLCNDV-F (5'-GAGGTCAGCAATCTGCCAAC-3')/ToLCNDV-R (5'-CTCTAGCTGATCTGCCATCG-3'). done 3 thirty 60 56°C min 15 7 product 2.7 kb) obtained. ligated into pGEM®-T Easy vector (Promega, USA), transformed Escherichia coli DH5α competent cells recombinant clones selected. plasmid isolated colonies PureYield™ Plasmid Miniprep System USA) sequenced India. end assembled give 994 nt long sequence (MW574990). revealed Indian isolate (MT185657) infecting bitter gourd. total 19 (Table 1) belonging distinct begomovirus species selected based on maximum present phylogenetic analysis. Pairwise alignment nucleotide ClustalW program tree constructed neighbour-joining method (using 1000 bootstrap replicates) available MEGA X. analysis closely related other isolates, highest (99%) okra (MN728677; Fig. 2). Only this genome may draw conclusion. widespread more than 43 plant vegetables, ornamentals, fibre crops weeds. To best our knowledge first report communis. It important maintain surveillance understand distribution assist developing long-term management control strategies. authors are thankful authorities DAV University, providing necessary research facilities, Council Scientific Industrial Research, Government financial support [38 (1466)/18/EMR-II].