A new strain (TN strain) of cucumber mosaic virus (CMV) was isolated from tomato plants with necrotic symptoms and proved
to carry a necrogenic satellite RNA (TN-Sat RNA). Double-strand cDNA of the TN-Sat RNA was synthesized by reverse transcription
and polymerase chain reaction using primers designed according to the conserved terminal sequences of known CMV satellite
RNAs. Sequence analysis indicated that the TN-Sat RNA consisted of 390 nucleotides (nt). Comparison of the sequence of the
TN-Sat RNA with those of other CMV satellite RNAs revealed four homobgous regions (I. 1–81 nt; II. 216–261 nt; III. 278–338
nt; IV. 349–390 nt) and one hypervarible domain in the region of 82–215 nt. Moreover, the TN-Sat RNA contained a characteristic
necrogenic consensus sequence at the 3′ end (339–367 nt) as reported in the known necrosis-inducing CMV satellite RNAs.
Keywords cucumber mosaic virus - satellite RNA - tomato necrosis - nucleotide sequence
The nucleotide sequence of the TN-Sat RNA of CMV has been deposited with the DDBJ/EMBL/GenBank databases under the accession
number D84389.