Metagenomic analysis of plant viruses associated with papaya ringspot disease in Carica papaya L. in Kenya

Papaya ringspot disease has threatened papaya production globally and has not spared Kenyan papaya industry. The disease is known to be caused by papaya ringspot virus (PRSV). Previous attempts to detect PRSV in papaya plants showing PRSD symptoms using ELISA and Reverse transcriptase (RT)-PCR procedures with primers specific to PRSV did not yield conclusive results. This led to the notion that there could be a different strain(s) of PRSV in Kenya or a totally different viruses infecting papaya in the country. This study therefore, employed next generation sequencing approach for identification and characterization of viruses associated with the disease in Kenya.