Sequence of a cauliflower mosaic virus strain infecting solanaceous plants.

The complete nucleotide sequence (8031 bp) of the DNA of cauliflower mosaic virus (CaMV) strain B29 is reported. This strain is unusual, since it infects both cruciferous and solanaceous plants. So far, from data of sequence comparisons between B29 and other CaMV strains there is no evidence for any obvious correlation between host range and distinct sequence features.

The full-length product of cauliflower mosaic virus open reading frame III is associated with the viral particle.

The gene III product (P15) of cauliflower mosaic virus (CaMV) is a DNA binding protein in which the DNA binding activity is located on its C-terminal part. In previous work, a C-terminal processed form of P15 (P11) was detected in purified viral particles as a minor component. The full-length P15 was shown to be present and to be matured, possibly by a cysteine proteinase, in CaMV replication complexes isolated from infected turnip leaves.

Identification of C-terminal amino acid residues of cauliflower mosaic virus open reading frame III protein responsible for its DNA binding activity.

We cloned in Escherichia coli truncated versions of the protein p15 encoded by open reading frame III of cauliflower mosaic virus. We then compared the ability of the wild-type p15 (129 amino acids) and the deleted p15 to bind viral double-stranded DNA genome. Deletions of > 11 amino acids in the C-terminal proline-rich region resulted in loss of DNA binding activity of wild-type p15.

Processing of the minor capsid protein of the cauliflower mosaic virus requires a cysteine proteinase.

The major capsid protein of the cauliflower mosaic virus (CaMV) is processed in vivo. The viral aspartic proteinase that catalyses this maturation has been characterized previously and is coded by the CaMV gene V. This virus has a second capsid protein, a minor component, encoded by gene III.

The cauliflower mosaic virus reverse transcriptase is not produced by the mechanism of ribosomal frameshifting in Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

The capsid protein and the reverse transcriptase of cauliflower mosaic virus (CaMV) are encoded by two genes (ORF IV and ORF V) that lie in different translation reading frames. A comparison can be drawn between the synthesis of both CaMV proteins and the fusion protein in a yeast retrotransposon, Ty, resulting from a +1 frameshifting event which fuses two out-of-phase ORFs encoding the structural protein and the reverse transcriptase of Ty. For this reason, we constructed a yeast expression vector containing CaMV ORF VII fused to CaMV ORF III by a fragment of 452 bp including the overlapping region of ORF IV and ORF V, ORF VII and ORF III being used as reporter genes.