Résumé
Plum pox virus (PPV), a member of the Potyvirus genus, is distributed worldwide and is the causal agent of the economically important sharka disease of stone-fruit trees. Recently, natural recombinant M/D isolates were found to occur in Slovakia and several European countries. Surprisingly, all the recombinant isolates identified to date showed a very close molecular relationship and shared the same position of a recombination breakpoint situated in the C terminus of the NIb gene. To verify the ability of recombinant PPV to be naturally transmitted by aphids and thus to evaluate their possible epidemiological impact, experimental transmission of temporally and geographically distant recombinant PPV isolates to different Prunus spp. (P. domestica ‘Julior’, P. armeniaca ‘Manicot’, P. persica ‘GF305’ and ‘Montclar’) was carried out using a clonal culture of Myzus persicae Sulzer under controlled conditions using a technique involving a controlled acquisition access period. The results confirmed that all the recombinant PPV isolates were transmitted by aphids; however, the transmission occurred at different rates.