The nucleotide sequence of cowpea mottle virus and its assignment to the genus Carmovirus

1 Department of Life Sciences, Indiana State University, Terre Haute, IN 47809, USA and 2 Department of Microbiology, School of Medicine, Inha University, Inchon 403-751, Korea The genome of cowpea mottle virus (CPMoV) is a positive ssRNA of 4029 nucleotides with six major open reading frames (ORFs). A non-coding region of 34 nucleotides precedes the first AUG. ORF1 encodes a 25 kDa polypeptide of unknown function and ORF2 encodes a 56 kDa putative RNA replicase. Like other members of carmoviruses, suppression of the amber termination codon of ORF1 would produce a read-through polypeptide of 83 kDa. ORF3 and ORF4 encode two small proteins of 7·8 and 9·8 kDa, respectively. ORF5 encodes the 40 kDa capsid protein. ORF6 is located within ORF5 but is in a different frame and has no postulated function. CPMoV RNA is blocked at the 5' end and is not polyadenylated at the 3' end. Comparison of the physicochemical properties, genomic arrangement, and predicted amino acid sequences with those of other viruses justify the assignment of CPMoV to the genus Carmovirus , family Tombusviridae . * Author for correspondence. Fax +1 812 237 4408. e-mail LSBOZAR@INDSTATE.SCIFAC.EDU Received 22 February 1995; accepted 7 July 1995.