Redefining the medicago sativa alphapartitivirus genome sequences

In alfalfa samples analyzed by high-throughput sequencing, four assembled contigs encoding gene products showing identities to alphapartitiviruses proteins were found based on BLASTX analysis. The predicted amino acid (aa) sequences of two contigs presented 99-100% identity to the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRP) and the capsid protein (CP) of the recently reported medicago sativa alphapartitivirus 1 (MsAPV1). In addition, the remaining contigs shared only 56% (CP) and 70% (RdRP) pairwise aa identity with the proteins of MsAPV1, suggesting that the samples presented also a novel species. Further analyses based on complete genome segments termini and the presence/absence of alphapartitivirus RNA in several samples and public alfalfa RNA datasets, corroborated the identification of two different alphapartitviruses members. Results also likely indicate that the reported MsAPV1 genome was previously reconstructed with genome segments of two different alphapartitiviruses. Overall, we not only revisited the MsAPV1 genome sequence but also report a new tentative alphapartitivirus species, which we propose the name medicago sativa alphapartitivirus 2. In addition, the RT-PCR detection of both MsAPV1 and MsAPV2 in several alfalfa cultivars suggests a broad distribution of both viruses.