Geminivirus disease complexes: an emerging threat

Small circular single-stranded DNA satellites have recently been isolated from plants infected with whitefly-transmitted monopartite begomoviruses. The satellites, named DNA beta, depend on the helper viruses for their proliferation and, in turn, are required for helper virus accumulation and symptom expression. They are highly diverse yet retain an overall conserved structure with respect to potential coding regions and regulatory elements. The begomovirus-satellite disease complexes are associated with economically important diseases, and have been isolated from vegetable and fibre crops, ornamental plants and weeds throughout Africa and Asia. Their widespread distribution and diversity, coupled to the global movement of plant material and the dissemination of the whitefly vector, suggests that these disease complexes pose a serious threat to tropical and sub-tropical agro-ecosystems worldwide.