A double-stranded RNA as the genome of a potential virus infecting Vicia faba

Preparations of double-stranded (ds) RNAs extracted from naturally infected Vicia faba Linn. growing in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, Eastern China displayed 3 dominant bands (FaR1, FaR2, and FaR3). FaR2 and FaR3 were found to be identical to the genomic dsRNAs of a recently reported Vicia cryptic virus (VCV). The positive strand of FaR1 contained two large open reading frames (ORFs), ORF1 and ORF2. The putative proteins encoded by these ORFs were found to have certain similarities to the putative capsid protein [ABO36237] and RNA-dependent RNA polymerase [ABC96788], respectively, of Tomato yellow stunt virus. Thus, FaR1 may represent the genome of a new dsRNA virus, which we have named Vicia cryptic virus M.