Sequence analysis of a soilborne wheat mosaic virus isolate from Italy shows that it is the same virus asEuropean wheat mosaic virus andSoilborne rye mosaic virus

Abstract

The complete sequence of the two RNAs of a furovirus isolate from durum wheat in Italy was determined. Sequence comparisons and phylogenetic analysis were done to compare the Italian virus with Soil-borne wheat mosaic virus (SBWMV) from the USA and with furovirus sequences recently published as European wheat mosaic virus (EWMV), from wheat in France, and Soil-borne rye mosaic virus (SBRMV), from rye and wheat in Germany. Over the entire genome, the Italian isolate RNA1 and RNA2 had respectively 97.5% and 98.6% nucleotide identity with EWMV, 95.5% and 85.8% with SBRMV-G and 70.6% and 64.5% with SBWMV. The Italian isolate was therefore clearly distinct from SBWMV The European isolates all appear to belong to the same virus and the name Soil-borne cereal mosaic virus may resolve earlier ambiguities.