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Most of the 26 viruses that infect globe artichoke are detrimental to the crop’s production, quality, and nutritional value, hamper the development of a nursery activity in the respect of current EU legislation and pose risks for the new plantings. Worldwide movement of virus-controlled plant propagative material require fast, accurate and feasible methods to guarantee reliable results and detection of multiple viruses in a single assay to reduce time and costs in routine tests. Here we describe the use of a digoxigenin-labelled polyprobe assembled from synthetic 50 nt single-stranded DNA sequences derived from genomes of the most commonly occurring viruses in globe artichoke. These included artichoke Italian latent virus (AILV), artichoke latent virus (ArLV), artichoke mottled crinkle virus (AMCV), turnip mosaic virus (TuMV), tomato infectious chlorosis virus (TICV), bean yellow mosaic virus (BYMV), cucumber mosaic virus (CMV), pelargonium zonate spot virus (PZSV), tomato spotted wilt virus (TSWV) and tobacco mosaic virus (TMV). The polyprobe described herein represent the first cheap and reliable example of a technology for broad-spectrum surveys in globe artichoke.

Artichoke Italian latent virus (AILV), Artichoke latent virus (ArLV), Artichoke mottled crinkle virus (AMCV), Bean yellow mosaic virus (BYMV), Cucumber mosaic virus (CMV), Pelargonium zonate spot virus (PZSV), Tomato infectious chlorosis virus (TICV), Tobacco mosaic virus (TMV), Tomato spotted wilt virus (TSWV) and Turnip mosaic virus (TuMV) are damaging to artichoke. We have developed a protocol enabling the simultaneous detection of these artichoke viruses by non-isotopic dot blot hybridisation with DNA probes. The probe mix detected all viruses with high specificity and identical to that obtained using individual probes. The approach is proposed for the routine assessment of phytosanitary status for certified nursery production of globe artichoke.