title: Maculavirus, a new genus of plant viruses.
abstract: Maculavirus is a new genus of plant viruses typified by Grapevine fleck virus (GFkV). A possible second member is Grapevine redglobe virus (GRGV). Maculaviruses are phloem-limited non-mechanically transmissible viruses with isometric particles c. 30 nm in diameter that have a rounded contour and prominent surface structure. Vectors, if any, are unknown. GFkV preparations contain two centrifugal components, T made up of empty protein shells and B, which contains 35% RNA. The coat protein (CP) has a molecular mass of 24 kDa. The genome is a single-stranded RNA that has c. 50% cytosine residues. It is 7564 nt in size, excluding the poly(A) tail and contains four putative open reading frames (ORF) that encode a 215.4 kDa polypeptide with the conserved motifs of replication-associated proteins of positive-strand RNA viruses (ORF1), the CP (ORF2), and one (GRGV) or two (GFkV) proline-rich polyproteins of 31.4 kDa (ORF3) and 15.9 kDa (ORF4), respectively, with unknown function. Replication-associated proteins and CP are phylogenetically related to those of members of the genera Tymovirus and Marafivirus. GFkV-infected grapevine cells contain vesiculated mitochondria, the possible site of RNA replication. In the natural host, GFkV particles accumulate in great quantity, sometimes in crystalline arrays in phloem cells.
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Protezione delle Piante e Microbiologia Applicata, Università degli Studi and Istituto di Virologia Vegetale del CNR, Sezione di Bari, Italy.
authors.forename: G P
authors.initials: GP
authors.lastname: Martelli
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Sabanadzovic
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Abou Ghanem-Sabanadzovic
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Saldarelli
mesh_terms: D016366:Open Reading Frames; D010942:Plant Viruses / Q000145:classification* / Q000235:genetics / Q000648:ultrastructure; D014779:Virus Replication