Abstract
By polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (PAGE) and nucleic acid hybridization, the extent of genomic relatedness between rice black-streaked dwarf Fijivirus (RBSDV) and maize rough dwarf Fijivirus (MRDV) was investigated. It was previously reported that RBSDV S7 and S8 correspond to MRDV S6 and S7, respectively, based on nucleotide sequences (Marzachí et al., Virology, 1991). However, present comparison of the genomic segments of the two viruses in polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis together with the hybridization studies with the cDNA probes showed correspondence of the two virus segments as RBSDV S7-MRDV S7 and RBSDV S8-MRDV S8. Hybridization studies using cDNAs to all the RBSDV segments except for S3 as a probe showed that extent of sequence relatedness was found to differ among the segments. Partial cDNA clones to RBSDV S1, S4, S5 and S6 reacted substantially weaker to MRDV genome than those to the other segments tested. And the cDNAs to the RBSDV S5 and S6 were found to be useful to differentiate the two viruses.
