Tobacco curly shoot virus isolated in Yunnan is a distinct species of Begomovirus

Virus isolate Y1 was obtained from tobacco showing curly shoot symptoms in Baoshan, Yunnan Province. Whitefly transmission test and virion morphology observation showed that it is a begomovirus. In reactions with 14 monoclonal antibodies raised against begomoviruses, Y1 was readily differentiated from begomoviruses reported in China, Pakistan and India. The complete nucleotide sequence of DNA-A was determined, it contains 2746 nucleotides, with two ORFs in virion-sense DNA and four ORFs in complementary-sense DNA. Comparisons with total DNA-A, intergenic region and deduced amino acid sequences of individual ORFs showed that Yl is a distinct Begomovirus species, for which the name Tobacco curly shoot virus (TCSV) is proposed. The total DNA-A of TCSV is most closely related to that of Tomato leaf curl virus from India (85% sequence identity). In contrast, the deduced coat protein of TCSV is most like that of Cotton leaf curl virus 72b isolate from Pakistan (98% amino acid sequence identity).