No abstract

No abstract

Grapevine is the most important fruit crop in Argentina in terms of cultivated area, as well as production volume. To date, only 11 viruses have been reported to infect vine in Argentina (Lanza Volpe et al. 2015). Grapevine virus E (GVE) is a member of the genus Vitivirus in the family Betaflexiviridae (Alabi et al.

Grapevine (Vitis L.), a deciduous woody vine, is a highly valuable agricultural crop. Grapevine, as other crops, is vulnerable to infectious pathogens. Several of them, including viruses, are a major threat to viticulture. Geminiviruses (family Geminiviridae) are insect transmitted, small non-enveloped viruses, with circular single-stranded DNA genomes, which are encapsidated in quasi-icosahedral geminated virions.There are only four geminiviruses associated to grapevine: two members of genus Grablovirus and two unassigned species. Here we present evidence of a novel begomovirus (genus Begomovirus) infecting grapevines from Argentina. Two circular ssDNA virus sequences were assembled from high-throughput sequencing data from Vitis vinifera cv Torrontes from Mendoza province, Argentina. Structural and functional annotation indicated that the virus sequences corresponded to complete DNA components A and B of a novel New World bipartite begomovirus. Genetic distance and evolutionary analyses support that the detected sequences correspond to a new virus, the first begomovirus reported to infect grapevine, a tentative prototype member of a novel species which we propose the name "grapevine begomovirus A" (GBVA).