Synergy between cucumber mosaic virus and zucchini yellow mosaic virus on Cucurbitaceae hosts tested by real-time reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction.

Cucumber mosaic virus (CMV) and zucchini yellow mosaic virus (ZYMV) are two principal viruses infecting cucurbitaceous crops, and their synergy has been repeatedly observed. In our present work, a real-time reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction procedure was established to study the accumulation kinetics of these two viruses in single and combined infections at the molecular level. The accumulations of open reading frames (ORFs) for 1a, 2a, 3a and coat protein (CP) of CMV and CP of ZYMV were tested. In the single infection, CMV-Fny ORFs accumulated to their maxima in cucumber or bottle gourd at 14 d post-inoculation (dpi), and gradually declined thereafter. ZYMV-SD CP ORF reached maximal accumulation at 14 and 28 dpi on cucumber and bottle gourd, respectively. However, when co-infected with CMV-Fny and ZYMV-SD, the maximal accumulation levels of all viral ORFs were delayed. CMV-Fny ORFs reached their maxima at 21 dpi on both hosts, and ZYMV-SDCP ORF reached maximal accumulation at 21 and 28 dpi on cucumber and bottle gourd, respectively. Generally, the accumulation levels of CMV-Fny ORFs in the co-infection were higher than those in the single infection, whereas the accumulation of ZYMV-SD CP ORF showed a reverse result.