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Title: NUCLEOTIDE SEQUENCE OF THE PUTATIVE REPLICASE GENE OF THE SOUR CHERRY STRAIN OF PLUM POX POTYVIRUS

Author
item NEMCHINOV, L - CONTRACT EMPLOYEE
item Hammond, John
item Hadidi, Ahmed

Submitted to: Archives of Virology
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 7/16/1998
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary: During the last three-four years our laboratory has demonstated that the exotic sour cherry isolate of plum pox virus (PPV) is a prototype of a new PPV subgroup, termed PPV-Cherry, which infects sweet and sour cherry trees in Europe. This new subgroup significantly differs from the conventional PPV isolates. Thus, this new viral subgroup forms a new threat to U.S. agriculture. In order to protect U.S. agriculture from this damaging exotic virus, we have characterized, on the molecular level, a portion of the viral genome that is directly involved in viral replication in infected cells. The information gained in this study is useful in designing molecular probes and DNA primers for molecular detection of PPV-Cherry in quarantine and certification programs as well as studying virus spread in Europe. In addition, the replicase gene may be used for establishing transgenic plants resistant to PPV-Cherry infection.

Technical Abstract: The complete nucleotide sequence of the NIb coding region of the sour cherry strain of plum pox potyvirus (PPV-SoC) has been determined. It consists of 1554 nucleotides and encodes a putative replicase protein of 518 amino acids. Although nucleotide sequence comparisons demonstrate its obvious relationship to other isolates of PPV, the degree of sequence identity was significantly low (c.78%). Many of the nucleotide substitutions are silent, as comparison of the NIb amino acid sequences show a 90-91% identity with other PPV isolates, PPV-SoC differs from isolates of PPV-D, PPV-M, and PPV-El Amar at multiple amino acid positions that are conserved between the other isolates; the divergent amino acid residues are scattered through the NIb sequence. This contrasts with differences between the coat protein genes, which are predominatly clustered in the N-terminal domain. The NIb sequence extends the PPV-SoC sequence presently available to 2781 nt from the 3' end (~ 28% of the genome). The sequence has been deposited at EMBL as accession number X97398.