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ARS Home » Pacific West Area » Corvallis, Oregon » Horticultural Crops Research Unit » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #208156

Title: A New Genus of Viruses Associtated with New Diseases in Plants

Author
item Martin, Robert
item BROWN, J - UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA
item TZANETAKIS, I - OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY

Submitted to: American Society for Virology Meeting
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 3/27/2007
Publication Date: 5/3/2007
Citation: Martin, R.R., Brown, J.K., Tzanetakis, I.E. 2007. A new genus of viruses associtated with new diseases in plants. American Society for Virology Meeting.

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: DsRNA was extracted from blueberries in British Columbia, Canada that exhibited a near 100% fruit drop disease and from tomatoes in Mexico that exhibit a severe necrosis and decline. The dsRNA in both cases was estimated to be 3500 bp. The complete sequence of both viruses has been obtained. Both viruses encode a putative coat protein (40% aa similarity between viruses) and the viral RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (65% aa similarity). In BLAST searches, these sequences are most closely related to partial sequences of an RNA-dependent RNA polymerase-like protein of dsRNAs purified previously from tomato (Tomato dsRNA virus T-11/21). The amino acid sequence of the dsRNA isolated from tomato is 99% identical (100% similarity) to that of T-11/21. The amino acid sequence of the dsRNA from the Blueberry Fruit Drop (BFD) affected plants shows about 60% similarity to the T-11/21 sequences. The tomato virus and BFD virus each show 38% similarity to the Zygosaccharomyces bailii virus Z Totivirus. Work is continuing to determine if these are viruses of endophytes that inhabit these plants or if they are novel plant viruses. Infected blueberry plants established in tissue culture and free of microbial contamination tested positive for BFD suggesting that the virus is not a fungal virus.