Ss. Pappu et al., Phylogenetic studies of tospoviruses (Family : Bunyaviridae) based on intergenic region sequences of small and medium genomic RNAs, ARCH VIROL, 145(5), 2000, pp. 1035-1045
Analysis of the intergenic region (IGR) of S and M RNAs of tospoviruses (Fa
mily Bunyaviridae) indicated their heterogeneity both in length and sequenc
e. In general, IGRs of M RNA were shorter in length compared to the IGRs of
their respective S RNA species. Percent identity among the S RNA IGR seque
nces of distinct tospovirus species varied from 42 to 57%, whereas it was 7
9 to 99% among isolates of the same species. Similarly, when IGRs of M RNAs
were compared, there was higher sequence identity among isolates of the sa
me tospovirus species (84 to 98%) than among distinct tospovirus species (4
6 to 59%). Percent nucleotide identities and maximum likelihood trees of IG
R sequences of S and M RNAs indicated that their sequence divergence is sim
ilar to that of nucleocapsid gene at inter and intra-species levels. This i
s the first detailed sequence analysis of IGRs of S and M RNAs of known tos
poviruses.