Nucleotide sequence of coat protein gene of yam mild mosaic virus, isolated in Papua New Guinea.

We determined the 3'-termimus 1353 nucleotides (nts) in length excluding the poly (A) tail of yam mild mosaic potyvirus (YMMV) RNA. The sequence starts within a long open reading frame (ORF) 1209 nts and is followed by untranslated region (3'-UTR) of 144 nts. The coat protein (CP) contains 266 amino acids (aa) with molecular ratio (Mr) of approximately 30 kDa. The CP of YMMV differs substantially from yam mosaic virus (YMV), Japanese yam mosaic virus (JYMV) (57 and 61% of amino acid sequence identity) and other potyvirus species. This result suggests that YMMV should be classified as a new yam potyvirus.