Molecular characterization of arabis mosaic virus from grapevines in Iran.

Arabis mosaic virus (ArMV) is one of several nepoviruses responsible for infectious degeneration disease of grapevines worldwide. To characterize ArMV isolates from grapevines in Iran, total RNA was extracted and the coat protein (CP) gene was amplified by RT-PCR using specific primers and sequenced. The completed CP gene nucleotide sequence of two Iranian isolates was 1518 nt long with 505 amino acids. A phylogenetic tree using CP gene sequences showed three groups, which were strongly supported by bootstrap analyses. Most of the isolates from Europe clustered in two main groups I and II and the two Iranian isolates clustered with a German isolate in group III. The pairwise nucleotide distances within ArMV isolates were 0.0–20.4% with the lowest diversity among isolates of group I followed by isolates of groups II and III. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]