When some virus- and disease-free Musa spp. (banana and plantain) are propagated by tissue culture, the resulting plants develop infections with banana streak badnavirus (BSV), a pararetrovirus. In sharp contrast to the virion DNA recovered from natural infections, the virion DNA from tissue culture-associated infections of different Musa spp. was highly similar if not identical. Although BSV does not employ integration during the infection cycle, BSV DNA was found to be integrated into the Musa genome. While one integration consisted of a partial BSV genome, a second contained more than one complete genome that was almost identical to BSV recovered from tissue culture-derived plants. The arrangement of this integrated BSV DNA suggests that it can yield an infectious episomal genome via homologous recombination. This report documents the first instance of integrated DNA of a nonintegrating virus giving rise to an episomal viral infection and identifies tissue culture as a possible trigger for the infection, raising the question of whether similar activatable viral sequences exist in the genomes of other plants and animals.

Infection by an endogenous pararetrovirus using forms of both episomal and chromosomal origin has been demonstrated and characterized, together with evidence that petunia vein clearing virus (PVCV) is a constituent of the Petunia hybrida genome. Our findings allow comparative and direct analysis of horizontally and vertically transmitted virus forms and demonstrate their infectivity using biolistic transformation of a provirus-free petunia species. Some integrants within the genome of P.hybrida are arranged in tandem, allowing direct release of virus by transcription. In addition to known inducers of endogenous pararetroviruses, such as genome hybridization, tissue culture and abiotic stresses, we observed activation of PVCV after wounding. Our data also support the hypothesis that the host plant uses DNA methylation to control the endogenous pararetrovirus.

Sequences of various DNA plant viruses have been found integrated into the host genome. There are two forms of integrant, those that can form episomal viral infections and those that cannot. Integrants of three pararetroviruses, Banana streak virus (BSV), Tobacco vein clearing virus (TVCV), and Petunia vein clearing virus (PVCV), can generate episomal infections in certain hybrid plant hosts in response to stress. In the case of BSV and TVCV, one of the parents contains the integrant but is has not been seen to be activated in that parent; the other parent does not contain the integrant. The number of integrant loci is low for BSV and PVCV and high in TVCV. The structure of the integrants is complex, and it is thought that episomal virus is released by recombination and/or reverse transcription. Geminiviral and pararetroviral sequences are found in plant genomes although not so far associated with a virus disease. It appears that integration of viral sequences is widespread in the plant kingdom and has been occurring for a long period of time.