Complete dsRNA sequence of a novel victorivirus isolated from the pear stem wart fungus Botryosphaeria dothidea

Botryosphaeria dothidea is a pathogen that causes many important diseases of deciduous fruit trees worldwide. In this study, a double-stranded (ds) RNA of 5322 base pairs (bp) in length from strain GY25 of B. dothidea was isolated and sequenced. The dsRNA potentially contained two overlapping open reading frames (ORFs). The predicted gene product of ORF1 had the highest amino acid sequence similarity, 37 % (E-value, 8e⁻¹⁰¹), to the capsid protein of Rosellinia necatrix victorivirus 1 (RnV1), and ORF2 had the highest similarity, 44 % (E-value, 0.0), to the RNA-directed RNA polymerase of Beauveria bassiana victorivirus NZL/1980(BbV-NZL/1980). Both of these viruses are members of the genus Victorivirus in the family Totiviridae. There was a small ORF at the 5′ terminus whose predicted gene product did not show homology to any known proteins. The dsRNA from B. dothidea strain GY25 appears to be a genomic component of a victorivirus, which we have tentatively named “Botryosphaeria dothidea victorivirus 1” (BdV1). This is the first full-length genome sequence of a putative victorivirus infecting B. dothidea.