Abstract: A disease of lentil with symptoms of distortion, mottling and chlorosis in the leaves, shortening of internodes and excessive branching was noticed in lentil at Kanpur, India, during 2012–2014. Results of polymerase chain reaction and reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction employed to detect suspected RNA and DNA viruses indicated involvement of a geminivirus, which was further characterized by sequencing of full genome amplified by rolling circle amplification. Analysis of full length DNA-A revealed 96.4–96.7% nucleotide similarity with bitter gourd yellow vein virus (BGYVV) isolates and tomato leaf curl New Delhi virus (ToLCNDV) isolate. As per the recent revision of begomovirus species demarcation criteria, if a new virus isolate shares ≥91% nt sequence identity with any other isolate of an existing species, it should be treated as an isolate of that species, even if it is <91% identical to all other isolates from that species. This made BGYVV an isolate of ToLCNDV and resulted in the de-recognizing of the BGGYV. Hence, the present virus has been named as a strain of ToLCNDV and designated as Tomato leaf curl New Delhi virus-Lentil-[India:Kanpur:Lentil:2014] with the acronym as ToLCNDV-Lentil-[IN:Knp:Len:14]. This is the first report of a begomovirus found associated with a disease in lentil from India.
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