New knowledge on two fabaviruses infecting Prunus species gained through high throughput sequencing. Cherry Metavlitos

During their lifetime, plants are expected to face multiple infection events. Furthermore, multiple genotypes of individual virus species may co–infect the same host organism. That eventually led to a situation when they harbor complex communities of viral species. Using high throughput sequencing, we describe co–infection of sweet and sour cherry trees with diverse genomic variants of two closely related viruses, namely prunus virus F (PrVF) and cherry metavlitos virus (ChMV). Although both viruses are the most homologous to fabaviruses (Secoviridae family), ChMV is distinguished from them in organization of the smaller genomic segment. That illustrates ChMV and PrVF recent differentiation into two separate species.