The pepper mild mottle virus (PMMoV), belonging to the tobamovirus genus, is currently one of the most destructive pathogens in pepper production. Tobamoviruses have been classified in terms of increased pathogenicity as pathotypes P0, P1, P1,2, P1,2,3 and P1,2,3,4, based on their ability to infect systemically Capsicum L0 , L1 , L2 , L3 and L4 resistant plants, respectively. Two hundred eighty pepper germplasms and 5 reference accessions known as resistant L alleles, were analyzed to select the resistance cultivars against PMMoV- P1,2,3 (CV130614-2) using bioassay and genetic markers. The susceptible accessions showed systemic symptom when inoculated with PMMoV- P1,2,3. However, accessions including IT223737, were resistant as they developed necrotic local lesions only on inoculated leaves, whereas no symptoms were observed on the upper leaves. Moreover, RT-PCR results for detecting the presence of virus were also negative. Thus, those accessions will be used as a novel source to facilitate introduction the resistant gene into commercial cultivars of pepper.
This work was supported by grants of the Research Program for Agricultural Science and Technology Development (PJ014186012022) "Development of Effective Screening Method and Evaluation of Major Disease Resistance in Solanaceae Germplasm", National Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Rural Development Administration, Republic of Korea.