Abstract
BackgroundPanicum streak virus (PanSV; Family Geminiviridae; Genus Mastrevirus) is a close relative of Maize streak virus (MSV), the most serious viral threat to maize production in Africa. PanSV and MSV have the same leafhopper vector species, largely overlapping natural host ranges and similar geographical distributions across Africa and its associated Indian Ocean Islands. Unlike MSV, however, PanSV has no known economic relevance.ResultsHere we report on 16 new PanSV full genome sequences sampled throughout Africa and use these together with others in public databases to reveal that PanSV and MSV populations in general share very similar patterns of genetic exchange and geographically structured diversity. A potentially important difference between the species, however, is that the movement of MSV strains throughout Africa is apparently less constrained than that of PanSV strains. Interestingly the MSV-A strain which causes maize streak disease is apparently the most mobile of all the PanSV and MSV strains investigated.ConclusionWe therefore hypothesize that the generally increased mobility of MSV relative to other closely related species such as PanSV, may have been an important evolutionary step in the eventual emergence of MSV-A as a serious agricultural pathogen.The GenBank accession numbers for the sequences reported in this paper are GQ415386-GQ415401
Highlights
Panicum streak virus (PanSV; Family Geminiviridae; Genus Mastrevirus) is a close relative of Maize streak virus (MSV), the most serious viral threat to maize production in Africa
Discovery of five new PanSV strains Sixteen full mastrevirus genome sequences were cloned and sequenced from Brachiaria deflexa, Panicum maximum, Panicum trichocladium, Urochloa maxima and Ehrharta calycina plants sampled from South Africa, Mozambique, Kenya, Nigeria, the Central African Republic and the Indian Ocean island of Mayotte (Table 1)
After confirming that plots of pairwise genetic similarity between all fully sequenced PanSV genomes closely matched those previously determined for MSV (Additional file 1), we used the 93% identity rule that has been used as a MSV strain demarcation criterion [14] to tentatively classify the PanSV isolates
Summary
Panicum streak virus (PanSV; Family Geminiviridae; Genus Mastrevirus) is a close relative of Maize streak virus (MSV), the most serious viral threat to maize production in Africa. PanSV and MSV display similar degrees of genetic diversity characterized by the existence of multiple discrete strains, many of which have distinctive geographical ranges [11,12]. Both species have what appear to be largely overlapping host ranges. Unlike MSV, PanSV has no known economic relevance in that it has only ever been found in nature infecting wild grass species in the genera Urochloa, Ehrharta and Panicum [3,11,13]
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary 
Published Version (
Free)
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call