Identification of Mycoviruses from Soil: A Short Study

Abstract

Mycoviruses are fungi-infecting viruses. The first mycovirus was discovered in the Agaricus bisporus, a cultivated fungus, in 1962. The infected mushrooms had abnormal fruiting bodies, grew slowly, and matured early, which led to significant yield losses. Mycoviruses require the live cells of other species to replicate, just like viruses that affect animals and plants. Mycoviruses have several traits in common with plant and animal viruses, but they also have the following special qualities: Mycoviruses appear to lack a movement protein, which is crucial for the life cycle of animal and plant viruses. This is because most mycoviruses lack an extracellular route for infection, are only intercellularly transmitted through cell division, sporulation, and cell fusion, and lack an extracellular route for infection in some cases. So, four soil samples collected from various locations in Swat yielded eight different kinds of fungi. Pythium-like fungi with isolated, white, fluffy growth were thought to be present. A purified colony on a PDA plate that had a greenish colony was thought to be Tricoderma, hence this pure plate was moved to a PDB for extraction purposes. Also isolated from the soil samples were Fusarium with pinkish growth, Alternaria, and Phytophthora with flower-shaped colonies. Due to the growth of Aspergillus, Niger, and other slimy bacteria, some of the plates were contaminated. The samples were screened for the presence of any Mycovirus by shifting all eight clean plates to Potato dextrose agar (PDB), crushing them afterwards. Testing crushed samples for mycovirus presence: Crushed samples were extracted to determine whether mycovirus was present. In order to discover any RNA/DNA bands in those 8 samples, extraction was carried out, and the samples were then seen under a gel dog. The following outcomes were attained: In each sample, only degraded bands and no discernible DNA/RNA band were discovered. As no band formed, it is inferred that there was no mycovirus in the samples.