Detection in vivo of a new gene product (gene III) of cauliflower mosaic virus.

Cauliflower mosaic virus DNA contains six major open reading frames (ORFs). As only the mRNA corresponding to the transcription of gene VI and its translation product have been isolated, the identification in infected plants of products corresponding to the five other putative genes remains to be established. The present paper reports the detection of an ORF III product by means of antibodies raised against an NH(2)-terminal synthetic peptide of 19 amino acids corresponding to a sequence predicted from the nucleotide sequence of ORF III. The detection of this gene product raises the question of the mechanism of its expression.