MULTIPLE ALIGNMENT AND HIERARCHICAL-CLUSTERING OF CONSERVED AMINO-ACID-SEQUENCES IN THE REPLICATION-ASSOCIATED PROTEINS OF PLANT RNA VIRUSES

We have used multiple alignment computer programs to align and hierarchically cluster the conserved amino acid "signature" sequences found in the replication-associated proteins of all plant RNA viruses sequenced so far. These regions, called "polymerase", "nucleotide-binding" and "N-terminal" are well conserved even between viruses which are only distantly related, and are thus very well suited for this type of analysis. Our results show that the clusterings obtained using these very short amino acid sequences are very robust to computing parameters and are surprisingly well matched with the taxonomic grouping of RNA plant viruses. The possibility of using this system as a new taxonomic criterion is discussed. © 1990.