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What is this?
Picture contributed by Steve Whitham from
the ICTVdB Virus Descriptions, © 2002 ICTV.
Potyviruses belong to the family Potyviridae: named after their prototypical member, potato virus Y. Potyviruses comprise the largest group of viruses that infect plants and include up to 30% of all plant viruses. Potyviruses cause significant agricultural, horticultural and ornamental crop losses, and include the most destructive and most feared viral disease of stonefruit (e.g, peaches, plums, apricots), the Plum pox potyvirus (PPV). The virus is probably distributed world-wide.
The viruses are transmitted by a number of means including a vector (insect Aphididae), grafting, contact between plants, seed, pollen to the seed, pollen to the pollinated plant. The virions of potyviruses are not enveloped, one type of particle only, nucleocapsids are filamented and contain a single-stranded, positive sense RNA genome of app. 10 kb.
See: www.ictvdb.rothamsted.ac.uk/Ictv/
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