NUCLEOTIDE-SEQUENCE OF SEGMENT S9 OF THE GENOME OF RICE GALL DWARF VIRUS

DNA complementary to the ninth largest (S9) of the 12 genome segments of rice gall dwarf virus (RGDV) was cloned and its sequence was determined. It is 1202 nucleotides in length and contains one open reading frame which extends for 969 nucleotides from nucleotide 26. It encodes a polypeptide of 323 amino acids with an M(r) of 35,560. The dinucleotide sequence at the 5' end and the trinucleotide sequence at the 3' end of the plus strand, 5'GG-GAU 3', which are present in the RNA of both wound tumour virus (WTV) and rice dwarf virus (RDV), were also found in RGDV genome segment S9. The nucleotide sequences in the non-coding region at the 5' terminus and in the 15 nucleotides at the 3' terminus, which form an imperfect inverted repeat of 10 bp together with the 5' terminus, are approximately 70% homologous with those of the WTV genome segment S9, but only 30% and 50% homologous with the respective termini of RDV S9.