A novel fusarivirus isolated from the phytopathogenic fungus Nigrospora oryzae

In this study, we report the discovery and molecular characterization of a novel mycovirus, Nigrospora oryzae fusarivirus 1 (NoFV1) isolated from the rice-infecting fungus Nigrospora oryzae . Excluding a poly (A) tail, the genome of the virus is 7004 nucleotide (nt) long containing three putative nonoverlapping open reading frames (ORF1, ORF2, and ORF3). The large ORF1 encodes a polypeptide with a conserved RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp) domain and a helicase domain that functions for RNA replication. Each of the smaller ORF2 and the smallest ORF3 encodes a putative protein with an unknown function. Amino acid (aa) sequence similarities between the NoFV1-ORF1- and ORF2-encoded proteins and the homologous sequences from other mycoviruses were found. Phylogenetic analysis on the basis of the RdRp and helicase domains showed that NoFV1 is phylogenetically related to viruses in the newly proposed family Fusariviridae. Thus, we suggest that NoFV1 might be a novel member of family Fusariviridae.