Characterisation and quantitation of mutant and wild-type genomes of Hardenbergia mosaic virus isolates co-infecting a wild plant of Hardenbergia comptoniana.

Deep sequencing of the polyadenylated transcriptome of a wild plant of Hardenbergia comptoniana was used to distinguish with high support complete genome sequences of two distinct isolates of Hardenbergia mosaic virus (HarMV) co-infecting it. Isolates shared 82.0% nucleotide (nt) and 86.7% amino acid (aa) identity. Isolate 57.1 (9,628 nt) had a deletion of 17 contiguous aa within the conserved core region of the coat protein (CP), while isolate 57.2 (9,675 nt) had a wild-type CP. Overall, HarMV genomes accounted for 10.69% of total transcripts sequenced, and the mutant virus genome was 23.1% more highly expressed than the wild-type genome.