Identification and Nucleotide Sequence of a Tobacco rattle virus RNA-1 Variant that Causes Spraing Disease in Potato cv. Bintje

An isolate of Tobacco rattle virus (TRV) obtained from a site in the Netherlands induced symptoms of spraing disease in tubers of the potato variety Bintje, which is generally considered to be resistant to infection by TRV. The isolate contained two phenotypically distinguishable RNA-1 variants, one of which was shown to carry the determinant for the ability to cause spraing in cv. Bintje. The nucleotide sequence of the coding region of this RNA-1 was determined and found to differ at 5.2–5.4% of positions from other TRV RNA-1 sequences in the database. The amino acid sequences of the predicted translation products were between 92 and 99% identical to those of a TRV RNA-1 that did not cause spraing in cv. Bintje, with P1b being the most divergent and the replicase readthrough domain the least.