The objective of this work was to characterize biologically and molecularly three Sugarcane mosaic virus (SCMV) isolates from maize crops in Brazil, to analyze them phylogenetically and to discriminate genome polymorphisms. Plants with mosaic and stunting symptons were collected from maize crops in the state of São Paulo and in Rio Verde county, GO, Brazil; their foliar extracts were inoculated in indicator plants and subjected to serological analysis with antisera to SCMV, Maize dwarf mosaic virus (MDMV) and Johnsongrass mosaic virus (JGMV). Sorghum 'Rio' and 'TX 2786' seedlings showed mosaic symptons after inoculation of the three isolates, and DAS-ELISA confirmed infection by SCMV in these plants. Total RNA was extracted from the infected leaves and was used as template for reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). Specific fragments were amplified, subjected to restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) analysis and sequenced. It was possible to discriminate the SCMV maize isolates from other Brazilian isolates of the virus. Multiple alignments and phylogenetic profile analyses corroborate these data and show diversity in the sequence of nucleotides that code for capsidal protein, what explains the distinct clustering of these isolates, suggesting that they should be ranked as distinct SCMV strains rather than geographical isolates.
Potyviridae; Zea mays; maize common mosaic; RFLP; RT-PCR
