Calanthe Mild Mosaic Virus, a New Potyvirus Causing a Mild Mosaic Disease of Calanthe Orchid in Japan

Calanthe mild mosaic potyvirus (CalMMV), a previously undescribed virus found in several locations in Japan, causes mild leaf mosaic and flower colour breaking of Calanthe plants. CalMMV was mechanically transmitted only to Calanthe sp., Phalaenopsis sp. and Tetragonia expansa of 50 plant species tested and was transmitted by the aphid Myzus persicae in a nonpersistent manner. The virus has flexuous particles about 764 nm long and induced the formation of intracellular cytoplasmic cylindrical inclusions. The virus particles contain a single polypeptide of 32.0kDa and a single RNA of mol. weight 3.1 × 10⁶. As determined by immuno-electron microscopy, CalMMV is distantly related to the Japanese isolate of dendrobium mosaic potyvirus (DeMV-J), but it showed no serological relationship to any of seven other potyviruses. The sequence of the 3′-terminal 1306 nucleotides of the viral genome was determined. The coat protein (CP) coding sequence is predicted to be 804 nucleotides in length, encoding a protein of 268 amino acids with a calculated mol. weight of 30389. The 3′ noncoding region is 169 nucleotides long and is followed by a polyadenylate tract. The amino acid sequence of the CP of CalMMV was 73% homologous to that of DeMV-J, but less than 66% to other potyviruses.