Abstract
Soybean is a major legume crop that plays an important role in food production, industrial production, and animal husbandry. Here, we characterize a novel soybean-infecting monopartite geminivirus identified in China. Analysis of the contigs de novo assembled from sequenced small interfering RNAs, followed by PCR, cloning, and sequencing, the complete viral genome was determined to be 2782 nucleotides. The genome contains the conserved nonanucleotide sequence, TAATATTAC and other sequence features typical of the family Geminiviridae, and encodes two and four open reading frames in the virion-sense and the complementary-sense strands, respectively. Genome-wide pairwise identity analysis revealed that the novel virus shares less than 65.6% identity with previously characterized geminiviruses. Phylogenetic and recombination analysis indicated that this virus was placed in a unique taxon within the family Geminiviridae and potentially arose from recombination. An infectious clone of this virus was further constructed and its infectivity was tested in different species of plants. Successful infection and characteristic symptoms were observed in Glycine max, Nicotiana benthamiana, N. tabacum, N. glutinosa, and N. tabacum cv. Samsun plants. Taken together, this virus represents a member of an unclassified genus of the family Geminiviridae, for which the name soybean yellow leaf curl virus is proposed.
Highlights
Geminiviridae is a family of circular single-stranded DNA viruses that constitute the largest family of known plant-infecting viruses and have caused many devastating diseases in a wide range of crops, vegetables, and ornamental plants worldwide [1,2]
The arrangement of the six predicted open reading frames (ORFs) encoded by the novel circular DNA virus is similar to that of monopartite begomoviruses, topocuviruses, turncurtoviruses, maldoviruses, and opunviruses
These observations suggest that this novel circular DNA virus represents a highly divergent species of a putative new genus of the Geminiviridae family, for which the name soybean yellow leaf curl virus (SbYLCV) is proposed
Summary
Geminiviridae is a family of circular single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) viruses that constitute the largest family of known plant-infecting viruses and have caused many devastating diseases in a wide range of crops, vegetables, and ornamental plants worldwide [1,2]. Geminiviruses encompass 520 species (http://talk.ictvonline.org/taxonomy/, accessed on 10 November 2021) and are classified into 14 genera based on genome structure, insect vector, host range, and genome-wide pairwise sequence identity (Becurtovirus, Begomovirus, Capulavirus, Curtovirus, Eragrovirus, Grablovirus, Mastrevirus, Topocuvirus, Turncurtovirus, Maldovirus, Opunvirus, Citlodavirus, Topilevirus, Mulcrilevirus) [7,8] Such a high number of species can be attributed to many factors, including the evolution of variants via mutation, recombination, and pseudo-recombination, acquisition of new components and satellites, high prevalence of insect vectors, global climate changes, and human activities [9]. Similar to many agriculturally important crops, soybean plants are constantly attacked by both abiotic and biotic stresses and a handful of soybean viral diseases have been documented [10] Viruses such as soybean mosaic virus, soybean dwarf virus, bean pod mottle virus, cowpea mild mottle virus, and alfalfa mosaic virus are the major reported soybean-infecting viruses that have posed a serious economic threat to soybean production, typically causing 10–30% yield losses under natural field conditions. The name soybean yellow leaf curl virus (SbYLCV) is proposed and could be considered as a type member of a new putative genus of the Geminiviridae family
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