Coat protein of Potyviruses

Summary The amino acid sequence of the coat protein of watermelon mosaic virus 2 (WMV 2) was determined by a combination of peptide and nucleic acid sequencing. The coat protein of WMV 2 contained 281 amino acid residues including a single cysteine at position 132 and a blocked amino terminus. Comparison with the coat protein sequences of 20 strains of ten distinct potyviruses showed sequence homologies ranging from 43% to 69% except for the N strain of soybean mosaic virus (SMV-N), where the sequence homology with WMV 2 was 83%. This degree of homology and the location of sequence differences between WMV 2 and SMV-N is much closer to that observed between strains of the same virus than that found between distinct potyviruses. These data suggest that WMV 2 and SMV-N may be strains of the same virus.