Molecular characterization of BBTV DNA components and detection using functionalized gold nanoparticles

Abstract

Bananas are one of the most important food crops and it is affected by many viruses causing heavy economic losses In India screening of tissue culture plants for BBTV was done by ELISA using imported kits and is a serious constraint to multiplication of BBTV free mother plants This work was aimed at the molecular characterization of BBTV from south India as well as to develop diagnostic method for better detection of BBTV The BBTV components were cloned sequenced and the phylogenetic analysis revealed that the Indian isolates belonged to South Pacific group Polyclonal antibodies were raised against recombinant clink protein in rabbit and recombinant coat protein in avian and their application in IC-PCR was evaluated A novel gold nanoparticle based method for the detection of BBTV was developed and compared with the PCR The AuNP probe assay was able to detect BBTV up to 1 pg spiked in healthy DNA 104 banana leaf samples were collected from Tamil Nadu Kerala and Assam The AuNP probe assay detected 90 samples to be positive while PCR detected 65 samples which confirmed that the AuNP probe assay was sensitive than PCR newline