| Popis: |
Grapevine (Vitis L.), a deciduous woody vine, is a highly valuable agricultural crop. Grapevine, as other crops, is vulnerable to infectious pathogens. Several of them, including viruses, are a major threat to viticulture. Geminiviruses (family Geminiviridae) are insect transmitted, small non-enveloped viruses, with circular single-stranded DNA genomes, which are encapsidated in quasi-icosahedral geminated virions. There are only four geminiviruses associated to grapevine: two members of genus Grablovirus and two unassigned species. Here we present evidence of a novel begomovirus (genus Begomovirus) infecting grapevines from Argentina. Two circular ssDNA virus sequences were assembled from high-throughput sequencing data from Vitis vinifera cv Torrontes from Mendoza province, Argentina. Structural and functional annotation indicated that the virus sequences corresponded to complete DNA components A and B of a novel New World bipartite begomovirus. Genetic distance and evolutionary analyses support that the detected sequences correspond to a new virus, the first begomovirus reported to infect grapevine, a tentative prototype member of a novel species which we propose the name “grapevine begomovirus A” (GBVA). |
