Blueberry fruit drop-associated virus: A New Member of the Family Caulimoviridae Isolated From Blueberry Exhibiting Fruit-Drop Symptoms

摘要

This study describes the nucleotide sequence and genome organization of a new DNA virus isolated from 'Bluecrop' blueberry plants exhibiting fruit-drop symptoms and named Blueberry fruit drop-associated virus (BFDaV). Blueberry fruit drop disease wasfirst detected in blueberry plants in British Columbia, Canada in the late 1990s, and in a single field in northern Washington state in the United States in 2012. Infected bushes abort nearly 100% of their fruit about three weeks prior to harvest, when the berries are about 3 to 5 mm in diameter. At harvest, the affected plants appear taller than healthy ones as there is no fruit weighing downthe branches. The virus was amplified from diseased material using rolling circle amplification, followed by enzyme digestion, cloning, and sequencing. The full genome of BFDaV is 9,850 bp in length and contains a single open reading frame, encoding fora polyprotein, and a large non-coding region. Based on the genome size and organization and phyloge-netics, BFDaV is proposed as a new and the largest member of family Caulimoviridae. Finally, in mapping part of a field with fruit-drop symptoms, there was a nearly perfect correlation between the presence of the virus and fruit-drop symptoms.