Molecular Biology of Raspberry ringspot nepovirus

The Raspberry ringspot virus (RpRSV), first reported in raspberries (Rubus idaeus) in Scottland, is also a causative agent in Germany of the grapevine fanleaf disease and the Pfeffinger disease of sweet cherries. The RpRSV belongs to the genus nepovirus in the Comoviridae family, has polyhedral particles and is transmitted in the soil via nematodes. Different strains of RpRSV have been identified, from different types of hosts, and different types of nematode vectors have been found for the different strains of RpRSV. Furthermore, the different strains of RpRSV induce different types of symptoms on herbaceous hosts. The complete nucleotide sequences of the genomic RNAs 1 and 2 of two isolates of RpRSV infecting grapevine (RpRSV-grapevine and RpRSV-cherry), as well as partial sequences of other isolates of RpRSV from grapevine, raspberry, blackberry, were determined. In this paper, we report sequence comparisons and analysis between the different available sequences of RpRSV in relation to known and putative biological functions, and try whenever possible to correlate molecular and biological data. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________