A potyvirus isolated from Mirabilis jalapa in China represents a new species

We previously reported a possible potyvirus isolated from Mirabilis jalapa that exhibited a high degree of sequence similarity to Basella rugose mosaic virus (BaRMV) in the region encoding the coat protein (CP). Here, we present the complete genome sequence of this isolate, comprising a 9666-nucleotide-long monopartite ssRNA (excluding the poly(A) tail) encoding a 3080-amino-acid polyprotein. The CP region showed a high degree of nucleotide sequence similarity to three BaRMV isolates (75.2–77.3% identity), while other regions showed nucleotide sequence identity values (48.8–73.7%) below the species demarcation threshold proposed by the ICTV. Therefore, we propose that this isolate be considered a new member of the genus Potyvirus, tentatively named “mirabilis crinkle mosaic virus” (MiCMV).