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. Declarations Ethics declarations The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest from this research, and that it doesn't contain any studies with human participants or animals. References Toma?echová J, Han?inský R, Predaj?a L, Kraic J, Mihálik D, ?oltys K, Vávrová S, Böhmer M, Sabanadzovic S, Glasa M (2020) High-throughput sequencing reveals bell pepper endornavirus infection in pepper (Capsicum annum) in Slovakia and enables its further molecular characterization. Plants 9(1):41. https://doi. org/10.3390/plants9010041 Valverde RA, Khalifa ME, Okada R, Fukuhara T, Sabanadzovic S (2019) ICTV Virus Taxonomy Profile: Endornaviridae. ICTV Rep Consortium J Gen Virol 100:1204-1205. https://doi. org/10.1099/jgv.0.001277 Publisher's Note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Bell pepper endornavirus (BPEV) belongs to the genus Alphaendornavirus in the family Endornaviridae. The latter includes viruses, which have been identified in oomycetes, protists and in plants (Valverde et al. 2019). In October 2021, symptoms possibly associated with viral infections like interveinal yellowing, leaf mottling, leaf curling, mosaic, necrosis, chlorosis, stunting and leaf deformation were observed on pepper (Capsicum annum L.) plants in two fields located in the Northeast of Tunisia. A total of thirtysix symptomatic leaf samples were collected and tested by DAS-ELISA using commercially available antibodies (Bioreba, Switzerland) against potato virus Y, cucumber mosaic virus, potato virus X, alfalfa mosaic virus, tomato spotted wilt virus and pepino mosaic virus. Results showed that 63% and 41% of the tested samples were positive for PVY and CMV, while the other viruses were not detected. Furthermore, electron microscopy (EM) analyses on some leaves that tested negative for viruses in ELISA showed the presence of elongated virus-like particles, which made us suspect the presence of BPEV. RT-PCR using specific primers dBPEV-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 investigated by EM. The PCR amplicon of one BEPV-infected plant from the Soliman district was directly sequenced. The BPEV-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.