Here we identified four isolates, MS, 3H, 50A, and 2K of cucumber mosaic virus (CMV) infecting tomato, on the basis of their non-coding intergenic region and a part of the coat protein (CP) sequence in the CMV genomic RNA3. The sequences from the four isolates were compared with other previously characterized isolates of CMV isolated from different plant species across the globe. Sequence comparisons revealed that the two CMV isolates from Hamedan province (MS and 3H) had the highest sequence identity with CMV-G10 (98%), which was previously reported as a severe Hellenic tomato isolate of CMV, while the CMV isolates from Tehran province, including CMV-2K (isolated from Karaj region) and CMV-50A (isolated from Varamin region), had the highest sequence identity with that of CMV-ALF (99%). Phylogenetic analysis of the nucleotide sequences showed that CMV-MS and CMV-3H belong to group IB, while CMV-2K and CMV-50A belong to group IA. This is the first report on the molecular characterization of novel isolates of CMV infecting tomato plants in Iran.
Keywords: cucumber mosaic virus; tomato; phylogenetic analysis..