STUDIES ON EFFECT OF POPPY MOSAIC VIRUS INFECTION ON POPPY PRODUCE AND SOME SECONDARY METABOLITES

The opium poppy (Papaver somniferum L.) is one of the oldest important medicinal plants known to mankind. More than 40 important alkaloids have been reported from this plant out of that many like morphine, codeine and thebaine are pharmaceutically important. The plants were found affected every year by a mosaic disease caused by Poppy mosaic virus (PMV-P; family Potyviridae). Although reduction in crop yield was noticed because of the above disease, however infection with PMV-P was found to affect the content of various papaver alkaloids which were analyzed by thin layer chromatography - Densitometry method for the Quantitative estimation of major combined alkaloids in poppy straw samples. Increasing trend was observed for some alkaloids; most noticeably for morphine, codeine and papaverine .The results demonstrated that PMV-P infection play important role on secondary metabolism of diseased poppy plants modifying the alkaloids quantitatively.