Molecular characterization of a novel fusarivirus infecting the plant-pathogenic fungus <italic>Neofusicoccum luteum</italic>.

Double-stranded RNAs from an isolate of <italic>Neofusicoccum luteum</italic> collected from grapevines were analyzed by high-throughput sequencing. Contig annotations revealed the presence of a potential novel virus belonging to the newly proposed family <italic>Fusariviridae</italic>. Completion of the viral genome sequence was performed. The genome is 6,244 nucleotide long, excluding the poly(A) tail and contains two putative open reading frames (ORFs). The first one encodes a large polypeptide of 1,552 amino acids (aa) with conserved RNA-dependent RNA polymerase and helicase domains typical of viral replicases. The second ORF encodes a putative 475-aa-long polypeptide showing weak homology to the corresponding ORF of Macrophomina phaseolina single-stranded RNA virus 1, for which no function is known so far. Phylogenetic analyses indicated that this virus should be considered a novel mycovirus belonging to the proposed family <italic>Fusariviridae</italic>, for which the name “Neofusicoccum luteum fusarivirus 1” (NlFV1) is proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]