Bean yellow mosaic virus (BYMV; genus Potyvirus, family Potyviridae) causes severe losses to various legume species and a number of non-legume species, particularly freesia plants. In a survey of virus diseases in Gyeonggi province, Korea, BYMV isolates were identified from many cultivated freesia species. Here, we determined the complete nucleotide sequences of a BYMV freesia isolate (BYMV-Fr; accession number FJ492961). BYMV-Fr genome consists of 9,545 nucleotides (nt) excluding the poly (A) tail and encodes 3,057 amino acid (aa), with an AUG start and UAG stop codon, containing one open reading frame typical of a potyvirus polyprotein. The polyprotein of BYMV-Fr was divided to ten proteins and the cleavage sites of each protein were determined. The coat protein (CP) and polyprotein of BYMV-Fr were compared at the aa level with those of the previously reported 4 BYMV isolates. BYMV-Fr shared 90.1 to 97.1 and 91.0 to 92.5% at the CP and polyprotein homology. Interestingly, BYMV-Fr showed identities of a lower level at the nt level of 5' noncoding region (61.4 to 67.6%) and at the aa level of P1 (71.4 to 72.8%), comparing with four BYMV isolates. Based on the aa sequence diversity of CP and polyprotein, phylogenetic analysis with the four BYMV isolates showed two distinct groups and BYMV-Fr and most BYMV isolates were most closely related to the clover yellow vein virus among 52 potyviruses. To our knowledge, this is the first report of the complete genome sequence of BYMV freesia strain.Keywords : Bean yellow mosaic virus, Freesia, Genetic diversity, Potyvirus, RT-PCR, Sequence analysis
IntroductionFreesia is a small genus of southern African Iridaceae subfamily Ixioideae, which has been familiar to horticulturists and valued by them for the beauty and fragrance of the flowers. Freesia was first grown in Europe in the mid-18th century and become one of the most popular plants in horticulture in the last half of the 19th century. Appealing shapers of freesias make them suitable line flowering for any arrangement, and their wide range of color increases their versatility (Wang, 2006), resulting that freesias are excellent cut flowers. The flowers are popular used for weddings and make fragrant additions to bouquets and body flowers. Freesias are known to be infected by Bean yellow mosaic virus (BYMV), Freesia mosaic virus, Cucumber mosaic virus, Tobacco rattle virus and ophioviruses (Brunt, 1995;Vaira et al., 2006). BYMV belongs to the genus Potyvirus in the family Potyviridae and the virus is distributed worldwide (Bos, 1970). In comparison with the majority of potyviruses, BYMV has a relatively broad range of plant species. BYMV infects beans, peas, lupins, clovers and dicotyledonous ornamental crops such as gladiolus, bulbous iris, gentians, and some orchids. In particular, BYMV severely affects plant growth, yield and quality of flowers and corms in freesias (Derks et al., 1980;Magie and Poe, 1972). Many isolates of BYMV are recognized and have been divided into a BYMV subgroup along with the closely related ...