Sequence diversity of wheat mosaic virus isolates

•New partial or near-complete wheat mosaic virus (WMoV) sequences are reported here from three Ohio wheat isolates (H1, K1, and W1), an Ohio maize isolate (GG1), and a Kansas barley isolate (KS7).•WMoV sequenced isolates cluster into two sequence groups with over 16% nucleotide sequence divergence.•Two diverged copies of the nucleoprotein-encoding RNA3 were identified for Nebraska-like isolates, while only one copy of RNA 3 was found so far for other isolates.

Wheat mosaic virus (WMoV), transmitted by eriophyid wheat curl mites (Aceria tosichella) is the causal agent of High Plains disease in wheat and maize. WMoV and other members of the genus Emaravirus evaded thorough molecular characterization for many years due to the experimental challenges of mite transmission and manipulating multisegmented negative sense RNA genomes. Recently, the complete genome sequence of a Nebraska isolate of WMoV revealed eight segments, plus a variant sequence of the nucleocapsid protein-encoding segment. Here, near-complete and partial consensus sequences of five more WMoV isolates are reported and compared to the Nebraska isolate: an Ohio maize isolate (GG1), a Kansas barley isolate (KS7), and three Ohio wheat isolates (H1, K1, W1). Results show two distinct groups of WMoV isolates: Ohio wheat isolate RNA segments had 84% or lower nucleotide sequence identity to the NE isolate, whereas GG1 and KS7 had 98% or higher nucleotide sequence identity to the NE isolate. Knowledge of the sequence variability of WMoV isolates is a step toward understanding virus biology, and potentially explaining observed biological variation.