Screening of banana bunchy top virus through multiplex PCR approach

Bunchy top disease caused by the banana bunchy top virus (BBTV) is a serious disease in hill banana. Detection of the BBTV infection in the planting material could help in the effective management of the disease. An attempt was made to develop a sensitive polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and multiplex PCR-based method for detection of BBTV in hill banana. DNA was isolated from the experimental plants at third and sixth months after planting. Multiplex PCR was done with Coat Protein (CP) and Replicase (Rep) gene-specific primer, and banana ethylene insensitive like protein (EISL) primer as internal control to identify failure in PCR reaction. This study revealed that multiplex PCR is effective for BBTV screening in hill banana with the advantage of overcoming the false positive in PCR amplification.