RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Identification of novel RNA viruses associated to bird’s-foot trefoil (<em>Lotus corniculatus</em>)
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 368944
DO 10.1101/368944
A1 Humberto J. Debat
A1 Nicolas Bejerman
YR 2018
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2018/07/13/368944.abstract
AB Bird’s-foot trefoil (Lotus corniculatus L.) is a highly nutritious forage crop, employed for livestock foraging around the world. Despite the agronomical importance of this resilient crop, the related literature is rather scarce. Here, we report the identification and characterization of two novel viruses associated with bird’s-foot trefoil. Virus sequences with affinity to enamoviruses (ssRNA (+); Luteoviridae; Enamovirus) and nucleorhabdoviruses (ssRNA (-); Rhabdoviridae; Nucleorhabdovirus) were detected in L. corniculatus transcriptome data. The proposed bird’s-foot trefoil enamovirus 1 (BFTEV-1) 5,736 nt virus sequence presents a typical 5’-PO-P1-2-IGS-P3-P5-3’ enamovirus genome structure. The tentatively named bird’s-foot trefoil nucleorhabdovirus (BFTNRV) genome organization is characterized by 13,626 nt long negative-sense single-stranded RNA. BFTNRV presents in its antigenome orientation six predicted gene products in the canonical order 3’-N-P-P3-M-G-L-5’. Phylogenetic analysis suggests that BFTNRV is closely related to Datura yellow vein nucleorhabdovirus, and that BFTEV-1 clusters into a monophyletic clade of legumes-associated enamoviruses. The bioinformatic reanalysis of SRA libraries deposited in the NCBI database constitutes an emerging approach to the discovery of novel plant viruses. The RNA viruses reported here provide a first glimpse of the virus landscape of this important crop. Future studies should assess the prevalence of BFTEV-1 and BFTNRV, and unravel whether the infection of these novel viruses is associated to specific symptoms.HighlightsLotus corniculatus is a highly nutritious forage cropWe present RNA evidence of a novel enamovirus and nucleorhabdovirusThe discovered viruses provide insights into the RNA landscape of L. corniculatusThe analysis of public SRA data constitutes an emerging source of novel plant viruses