Charlock mustard (<i>Sinapis arvensis</i>): a weed reservoir for begomoviruses and associated betasatellite in Jordan

Four crop-infecting begomoviruses were found naturally affecting Charlock mustard (<i>Sinapis arvensis</i> L.) plants in Jordan and characterized at the molecular level. Symptoms included leaf curling and stunting. PCR analysis showed the presence of <i>Tomato yellow leaf curl virus</i> (TYLCV), <i>Tomato yellow leaf curl Sardinia virus</i> (TYLCSV), <i>Squash leaf curl virus</i> (SLCV) and <i>Watermelon chlorotic stunt virus</i> (WmCSV). These viruses were associated with Cotton leaf curl Gezira betasatellite (CLCuGβ). Sequence analysis revealed that TYLCV and TYLCSV had 98.5% and 99.3% nucleotide (nt) sequence identities with a previously described TYLCV strain from Florida and TYLCSV from Sardinia, respectively. The other two viruses, SLCV and WmCSV, shared 99.7% and 99.5% nt identities with previously described strains from Jordan. Sequence analysis also showed that CLCuGβ had 98.8% nt identity with a strain from Israel. To our knowledge, this is the first report of <i>S. arvensis</i> as a natural host of SLCV, WmCSV, TYLCSV and CLCuGβ.