Molecular Analysis of Korean Isolate of Barley Yellow Mosaic Virus

The complete sequences of both RNAs of an isolate of barley yellow mosaic virus (BaYMV) from Haenam, Korea, were determined. RNA1 is 7639 nucleotides long [excluding the 3′-poly(A)], and codes for a 270 kDa polyprotein of 2411 amino acids which contains the capsid protein (CP) at the C terminus and seven putative non-structural proteins. RNA2 is 3582 nucleotides long and codes for a polyprotein of 890 amino acids, which contains a 28 kDa putative proteinase (P1) and a 73 kDa polypeptide (P2). The whole sequences of Korean isolate (BaYMV-K) closely resembled those of an isolate from Japan (BaYMV-J) (99.6 identical nucleotides for RNA1; 99.4 for RNA2) and china (BaYMV-C) (96.7 and 96.2%, respectively) than from Germany (BaYMV-G) (93.6 and 90.4%, respectively). The greatest differences between the BaYMV-K and BaYMV-J isolates were in the 3′-NCRs of RNA1 and 5′ NCRs of RNA2 and there were also some other regions of difference in Nib Pro (RNA1) and P1 (RNA2). Further, the phylogenetic analysis of CP region showed that Asian and European isolates formed distinct clusters. However, molecular variations between isolates could not be linked to earlier results showing differences in cultivar response.