First report of bell pepper endornavirus (BEPV) on pepper (Capsicum annum L.) in Tunisia

knowledge,this is the first report of BEPV on pepper in Tunisia.DeclarationsEthics declarations The authors declare that they have no conflict ofinterest from this research, and that it doesn't contain any studies withhuman participants or animals.ReferencesToma?echová J, Han?inský R, Predaj?a L, Kraic J, Mihálik D, ?oltysK, Vávrová S, Böhmer M, Sabanadzovic S, Glasa M (2020)High-throughput sequencing reveals bell pepper endornavirusinfection in pepper (Capsicum annum) in Slovakia and enablesits further molecular characterization. Plants 9(1):41. https://doi.org/10.3390/plants9010041Valverde RA, Khalifa ME, Okada R, Fukuhara T, Sabanadzovic S(2019) ICTV Virus Taxonomy Profile: Endornaviridae. ICTVRep Consortium J Gen Virol 100:1204-1205. https://doi.org/10.1099/jgv.0.001277Publisher's Note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictionalclaims in published maps and institutional affiliations.Bell pepper endornavirus (BPEV) belongs to the genusAlphaendornavirus in the family Endornaviridae. The latterincludes viruses, which have been identified in oomycetes,protists and in plants (Valverde et al. 2019). In October2021, symptoms possibly associated with viral infectionslike interveinal yellowing, leaf mottling, leaf curling,mosaic, necrosis, chlorosis, stunting and leaf deformationwere observed on pepper (Capsicum annum L.) plants in twofields located in the Northeast of Tunisia. A total of thirtysixsymptomatic leaf samples were collected and testedby DAS-ELISA using commercially available antibodies(Bioreba, Switzerland) against potato virus Y, cucumbermosaic virus, potato virus X, alfalfa mosaic virus, tomatospotted wilt virus and pepino mosaic virus. Results showedthat 63% and 41% of the tested samples were positive forPVY and CMV, while the other viruses were not detected.Furthermore, electron microscopy (EM) analyses on someleaves that tested negative for viruses in ELISA showed thepresence of elongated virus-like particles, which made ussuspect the presence of BPEV. RT-PCR using specific primersdBPEV-12,632 F/dBPEV13238R (Toma?echová et al.2020) confirmed the presence of BPEV in 22% (8 of 36)of the samples, including some that were previously investigatedby EM. The PCR amplicon of one BEPV-infected plant from the Soliman district was directly sequenced. TheBPEV-Tu sequence (GenBank accession No. OP868672)shared 97% nucleotide identity with isolates from Slovakia(MN580392) and China (MH182675). To our knowledge,this is the first report of BEPV on pepper in Tunisia.