Detection of barley yellow mosaic virus strains, variations in China by examining single-strand con-formation polymorphisms of RT-PCR products

everal strains of barley yellow mosaic virus(BaYMV),each distinct from those recognisedin Japan and Europe,have been identified in China based upon the response of foriegn barley cul-tivars.These strains are identical in serological properties and can not be distinguished by ELISA and Western blot;They are also probably high homlogous and can not be distinguished by North-ern blot analysis and reverse transcriptase- polymorase chain reaction(RT-PCR).However,sincetheir pathogenicities are different,they must have some variations at nucleic acid level,Thesevariations can be detected by examining single-strand conformation polymorphisms of RT-PCRproducts,which further confirmed that different strains of the virus are presented in China.