Journal of General Virology

Analysis of the complete genome sequence of black queen-cell virus, a picorna-like virus of honey bees

Neil Leat, Brenda Ball,† Vandana Govan and Sean Davison

Department of Microbiology, University of the Western Cape, Private Bag X17, Bellville 7535, Cape Town, South Africa

A virus with picorna-like biophysical properties was isolated from South African honey bees. On the basis of serology, it was identified as an isolate of black queen-cell virus (BQCV). Nucleotide sequence analysis revealed an 8550 nt polyadenylated genome containing two large ORFs. The 5´-proximal ORF (ORF 1) represented 4968 nt while the 3´-proximal ORF (ORF 2) represented 2562 nt. The ORFs were separated by a 208 nt intergenic region and were flanked by a 657 nt 5´-untranslated region and a 155 nt 3´-untranslated region. Deduced amino acid sequences for ORF 1 and ORF 2 were most similar to the non-structural and structural proteins, respectively, of Drosophila C virus (DCV), Rhopalosiphum padi virus (RhPV), Himetobi P virus (HiPV) and Plautia stali intestine virus (PSIV). It is proposed that BQCV belongs to the group of picorna-like, insect-infecting RNA viruses constituted by DCV, RhPV, HiPV and PSIV.

Click here for full text HTML

JGV Direct table of contents

© 2000 SGM

This article is now available in the August 2000 print issue of JGV (vol. 81, 2111–2119). The complete issue of the journal may be seen in electronic form on JGV Online.