The Nucleotide Sequence of Tomato Black Ring Virus RNA-2

Abstract

The sequence of the 4662 nucleotides [excluding poly(A)] of RNA-2 of tomato black ring rivus (TBRV) has been determined. Most of the sequence (4074 nucleotides) encodes a polypeptide of mol. wt. 150000 (150K). The 5'' and 3'' non-coding sequences are 287 and 301 nucleotides in length, differ from the coding sequence in base composition, and contain repeated sequences, some of which resemble oligonucleotides in the 3'' non-coding sequence of M-RNA of cowpea mosaic virus (CPMV). From its amino acid composition, the coat protein of TBRV was tentatively located in the C-terminal third of the 150K polypeptide. The amino acid sequence of the 150K polypeptide immediately N-terminal to the putative coat protein sequence was found to resemble parts of the 30K polypeptides of tobamoviruses and, to a lesser extent, part of the 105K polypeptide translation product of CPMV M-RNA.