Figure 1. Quantification of tomato yellow leaf curl virus sense and complementary sense strand DNA molecules in virus purifications.

Number of virus sense (VS, dark grey bars) and complementary-sense (CS, light grey bars) strand DNA molecules of tomato yellow leaf curl virus (TYLCV) quantified in 10 μl of TYLCV virion purifications of the Israel (TYLCV-IL) and Mild (TYLCV-Mld) strains before (−) and after (+) DNase I treatment. These virus purifications were used for B. tabaci feeding in this work to determine if virus replication occurs within them. As the presence of CS strands is indicative of virus replication, highlighting their occurrence in the virus diet provided to whiteflies is important. Two independent virus purifications per virus strain were obtained and analyzed. Quantification of VS and CS DNA molecules was performed according to Rodríguez-Negrete et al.¹⁸. Data represent the mean and standard error of three independent qPCR technical replicates. The CS:VS ratio for each virus purification is indicated. PCR efficiency values measured across a dynamic range of 10³ to 10⁹ template molecules were 95.73% for TYLCV-Mld and 95.06% for TYLCV-IL in the case of VS detection. Efficiency values in CS quantification were 95.44% for TYLCV-Mld and 95.17% for TYLCV-IL.