Redefining the medicago sativa alphapartitiviruses genome sequences

Abstract

In Argentina, alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.) is a primary forage crop and a major feed component in dairy and beef cattle production systems. In 2010, we observed alfalfa plants showing symptoms of shortened internodes (bushy appearance), leaf puckering and varying-sized vein enations on abaxial leaf surfaces (Bejerman et al., 2011). Deep sequencing of alfalfa samples collected in central region of Argentina revealed the presence of four RNA viruses: alfalfa mosaic virus (AMV), alfalfa dwarf virus (ADV), alfalfa enamovirus-1 (AEV-1) and bean leaf roll virus (BLRV) (Bejerman et al., 2015, 2016; Trucco et al., 2014, 2016) and one DNA virus: alfalfa leaf curl virus (ALCV) (Bejerman et al., 2018). Furthermore, four assembled sequences (contigs) analyzed by BlastX searches shared significant identity (E-value = 0), to the capsid and replication associated proteins encoded by alphapartitiviruses.