Plumeria ampelovirus 1, a novel ampelovirus subgroup II member infecting Plumeria spp.

A novel ampelovirus, named as “plumeria ampelovirus 1” (PluAV1), was identified in plumeria (Plumeria spp.) through high-throughput sequencing. The PluAV1 genome was Sanger-sequenced independently, revealing a complete genome of 14,044 nucleotides and encoding 10 open reading frames. The amino acid sequences of the taxonomically informative gene products (RdRP, HSP70h, CP) of PluAV1 diverged from those of other ampeloviruses by over 25%, and maximum-likelihood phylogenetic analysis of these proteins revealed that PluAV1 belongs to the ampelovirus subgroup II. Two distinct PluAV1 phylogroups were identified underscoring the divergent nature of its natural populations. The species name Ampelovirus plumeria is proposed for PluAV1.