Infectious in Vitro Transcripts From cDNA Clone of a Japanese Gentian Isolate of Sikte Waterborne Virus, Which Shows Host-specific Low-temperature-preferred Multiplication

Abstract Tombusviruses have been identified in several crops, which include gentian virus A (GeVA), in Japanese gentians. In this study, we isolated another tombusvirus, Sikte waterborne virus strain C1 (SWBV-C1) from Japanese gentian. Although SWBV-C1 and GeVA are not closely related among tombusviruses, SWBV-C1, like GeVA, showed host-specific low-temperature-preferred multiplication in gentians and Arabidopsis. The use of in vitro transcripts from full-length cDNA clones of SWBV-C1 genomic RNA as inocula confirmed these properties, which indicates that the identified genomic RNA sequences encode viral factors underlying characteristic SWBV-C1 features.