A carlavirus-specific PCR primer and partial nucleotide sequence provides further evidence for the recognition of cowpea mild mottle virus as a whitefly-transmitted carlavirus

Cowpea mild mottle virus (CMMV) has physicochemical properties typical of carlaviruses, but has remained unclassified due to a number of unusual properties, including no serological cross-reaction with 18 carlaviruses; production of brush-like inclusion bodiesin vivo; and the ability to be transmitted by whiteflies (Bermisia tabaci). In this paper we report the use of a carlavirus specific PCR primer to identify CMMV as a member of the carlavirus group. This is confirmed by nucleotide sequence (958 nucleotides) from the 3′ terminal region of CMMV RNA which contains a partial open reading frame (ORF) having high similarity with the coat proteins of other carlaviruses. The sequence also contains an 11.7K ORF at the 3′ terminus, containing a ‘zinc-finger’ motif which is unique to carlaviruses.