First report of a novel partitivirus from the phytopathogenic fungusFusarium cerealisin China

Abstract

To our knowledge, no mycoviruses have been reported inFusarium cerealis. Here, we describe a novel double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) virus, Fusarium cerealis partitivirus 1 (FcPV1), isolated fromF. cerealisstrain HN30 from Henan Province, China. The FcPV1 genome consists of two dsRNA segments, 1732 bp (dsRNA1) and 1361 bp (dsRNA2) in length, each containing a single open reading frame potentially encoding a 61.0-kDa protein and a 42.0-kDa protein, respectively. dsRNA1 encodes a putative RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp), while the dsRNA2 product has no significant similarity to any other capsid proteins (CPs) in the GenBank databases other than limited similarity to hypothetical "capsid" proteins of a few partitiviruses. Sequence alignments and phylogenetic analysis showed that FcPV1 is related to members of the newly proposed genus "Zetapartitivirus" in the familyPartitiviridae.