A viable mutation in cauliflower mosaic virus, a retroviruslike plant virus, separates its capsid protein and polymerase genes.

A viable strain of cauliflower mosaic virus is described which arose by illegitimate recombination of two lethal parents. In this strain, the normally overlapping open reading frames IV and V, corresponding to the retrovirus gag and pol genes, are separated by a short intergenic region, suggesting that in this virus and in contrast to retroviruses, fusion of gag and pol gene products is not obligatory.