A. J. BOWEN, I. T. CLARKE and G. D. FOSTER*
University of Bristol, School of Biological Sciences, Woodland Road, Bristol BS8 1UG, UK
BOWEN, A. J., I. T. CLARKE and G. D. FOSTER, 2003. Review of the genus Macluravirus of the Potyviridae. Bulg. J. Agric. Sci., 9: 277–286
The molecular evidence for the formation of the genus Macluravirus was first proposed by Badge et al. (1997) to include Maclura mosaic virus (MacMV) and Narcissus Latent Virus (NLV), as these two species appeared to form a distinct group together in the family Potyviridae. The morphological and serological observations were supported by 3'-terminal sequence data used to construct phylogenetic relationships. Subsequently, similar molecular techniques have identified two further viruses as members of this genus, Cardamom mosaic virus (CdMV) by Jacob and Usha (2001), and Chinese yam necrotic mosaic virus (ChYNMV) by Kondo (2001). The characteristic features of this genus include the possession of flexuous, filamentous particles, between 650–800 nm in length, the induction of cylindrical cytoplasmic inclusions in infected cells and aphid transmission. Macluravirusgenomes range from 8 to 9.5 kb and their coat proteins are of experimentally determined molecular weights between 38–40 kDa.
*The first two authors contributed equally to the work.