We report the characterization of the 3'-terminal genome region of an isolate of Southern bean mosaic virus found in the State of São Paulo, Brazil (SBMV-SP). The RNA was extracted from purified virus particles and subjected to RT-PCR using oligonucleotides designed to amplify 972 nt of the 3'-terminal region of the viral genome. The coat protein gene (ORF4) contains 801 nt, including the stop codon UGA, coding for 266 amino acids with a predicted molecular weight of 28,800 Da. The 3'-terminus of ORF2 overlaps the 5'-terminus of ORF4 in 61 amino acids. The nuclear localization signal sequence, found in the "R domain" at the 5'-terminal of the ORF4 in some sobemoviruses, was not identified in SBMV-SP. This could explain the absence of SBMV-SP particles inside the cell nucleus. The SBMV-SP sequence showed identity of nucleotides and amino acids of, respectively, 91% and 93% with the "Arkansas" isolate (SBMV-ARK) described in the USA. The results obtained in the present work indicate that SBMV-SP and SBMV-ARK are closely related isolates of the same virus.
commom bean; Sobemovirus; SBMV; sequencing
