Complete genome sequence of camellia virus A, a tentative new member of the genus Waikavirus

• Published in: Archives of virology Vol. 166; no. 11; pp. 3207 - 3210
• Main Authors: Liao, Ruiling, Chen, Qingying, Zhang, Song, Cao, Mengji, Zhou, Changyong
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Vienna Springer Vienna 01.11.2021; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Amino acid sequence; Annotated Sequence Record; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Biomedicine; Genomes; Infectious Diseases; Medical Microbiology; New species; Nucleotide sequence; Open reading frames; Phylogeny; Poly(A); Polyadenylation; RNA viruses; Virology; Waikavirus
• ISSN: 0304-8608; 1432-8798
• DOI: 10.1007/s00705-021-05216-6

A new positive-strand RNA virus genome was discovered in Camellia japonica plants. The complete genome of the virus is 12,570 nt in size, excluding the poly(A) tail, and contains one large open reading frame (ORF1) and two small open reading frames (ORF2, ORF3). ORF1 and ORF2 are homologous to sequences of waikaviruses, while ORF3 has no relatives in the databases. ORF1 encodes a putative polyprotein precursor that is putatively processed into eight smaller proteins, as in typical waikaviruses. Comprehensive analysis, including BLAST searches, genome organization and pairwise sequence comparisons, and phylogeny reconstructions, invariably placed the virus with the waikaviruses. Furthermore, due to lower amino acid sequence identity to known waikaviruses than the threshold species demarcation cutoff, this virus may represent a new species in the genus Waikavirus , family Secoviridae , and we have tentatively named it “camellia virus A” (CamVA). Finally, a field survey was conducted to assess the occurrence of CamVA in camellias and its associated symptoms.