The identification and partial characterisation of plant viruses in the tropics

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Abstract
Failure to distinguish between a new disease and the virus causing it (which may or may not be a new virus), together with the naming of viruses as new on totally inadequate grounds, has resulted in a situation of steadily increasing confusion in the literature. This can be avoided by a general awareness of the need for minimal requirements for adequate identification and description and tropical plant viruses. These should include results of detailed studies on particle morphology; on diagnostic, propagation and assay hosts; on methods of purification or partial purification; on comparative serology; and on transmission. They should also include, where possible, results of studies on particle properties, i.e., sedimentation coefficient(s), MW of viral protein(s) and nucleic acid(s). To achieve this, access to certain items of basic equipment is essential: good screen or glasshouses, ultracentrifuges and rotors, and facilities for serology. Symptomatology, host range and in vitro physical properties, i.e., dilution end point, thermal inactivation point and longevity in vitro, are unreliable and imprecise aids to identification, and their value is strictly limited to occasional specific uses such as the possible separation of co-infecting viruses. Some of the procedures that can be used for virus diagnosis and description are outlined. Guidelines are presented for minimum standards of data acquisition and presentation which are considered desirable in publications concerning the identification and description of viruses causing plant disease in the tropics.