A Lineage of Begomoviruses Encode Rep and AC4 Proteins of Enigmatic Ancestry: Hints on the Evolution of Geminiviruses in the New World

The begomoviruses (BGVs) are plant pathogens that evolved in the Old World during the Cretaceous and arrived to the New World (NW) in the Cenozoic era. A subgroup of NW BGVs, the “Squash leaf curl virus (SLCV) lineage” (S-Lin), includes viruses with unique characteristics. To get clues on the evolut...

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: SANDRA ILIANA TORRES HERRERA, ANGELICA ROMERO OSORIO, OSCAR ALBERTO MORENO VALENZUELA, GUILLERMO PASTOR PALACIOS, Yair Cardenas-Conejo, Jorge Ramiez_Prado, Lina Riego-Ruiz, YERENI MINERO GARCIA, Salvador Ambriz Granados, Gerardo Rafael Argüello Astorga
Format: article
Status:Published version
Publication Date:2019
Country:México
Institution:Centro de Investigación Científica de Yucatán
Repository:Repositorio Institucional CICY
Language:English
OAI Identifier:oai:cicy.repositorioinstitucional.mx:1003/1688
Online Access:http://cicy.repositorioinstitucional.mx/jspui/handle/1003/1688
Access Level:Open access
Keyword:info:eu-repo/classification/Autores/GEMINIVIRUS EVOLUTION
info:eu-repo/classification/Autores/REPLICATION PROTEIN
info:eu-repo/classification/Autores/CURTOVIRUS TAXONOMY
info:eu-repo/classification/Autores/ENDOGENOUS VIRAL ELEMENT
info:eu-repo/classification/Autores/REPLICATION ORIGIN
info:eu-repo/classification/Autores/ROLLING-CIRCLE REPLICATION
info:eu-repo/classification/cti/2
info:eu-repo/classification/cti/24
info:eu-repo/classification/cti/2415
info:eu-repo/classification/cti/241502
Description
Summary:The begomoviruses (BGVs) are plant pathogens that evolved in the Old World during the Cretaceous and arrived to the New World (NW) in the Cenozoic era. A subgroup of NW BGVs, the “Squash leaf curl virus (SLCV) lineage” (S-Lin), includes viruses with unique characteristics. To get clues on the evolutionary origin of this lineage, a search for divergent members was undertaken. Four novel BGVs were characterized, including one that is basal to the group. Comparative analyses led to discover a ~670 bp genome module that is nearly exclusive of this lineage, encompassing the replication origin, the AC4 gene, and 480 bp of the Rep gene. A similar DNA module was found in two curtoviruses, hence suggesting that the S-Lin ancestor acquired its distinctive genomic segment by recombination with a curtovirus. This hypothesis was definitely disproved by an in-depth sequence analysis. The search for homologs of S-Lin Rep uncover the common origin of Rep proteins encoded by diverse Geminiviridae genera and viral “fossils” integrated at plant genomes. In contrast, no homolog of S-Lin Rep was found in public databases. Consequently, it was concluded that the SLCV clade ancestor evolved by a recombination event between a primitive NW BGV and a virus from a hitherto unknown lineage