High-throughput sequencing from symptomatic tomato and pepper plants collected in Panama rendered the complete genome of the southern tomato virus (isolate STV_Panama), bell pepper endornavirus (isolate BPEV_Panama), and almost-complete genomes of three other BPEV isolates. Tomato chlorosis virus, tomato mosaic virus, and impatiens necrotic spot virus were also detected.
Analysis of the complete genome of STV and BPEV worldwide isolates revealed nucleotide diversities of 0.004246 and 0.070523, respectively. Bayesian phylogenetic analysis showed two main groups for each virus (I and II), and several subgroups for BPEV (IA, IB, IC, IIA and IIB). Isolate STV_Panama clustered with NC_12-03-08 from USA and Tom3-T from France (99.97% nucleotide identity) in Group I and BPEV_Panama was close to the Canadian isolate BPEV_Ontario
(99.66% nucleotide identity) in Subgroup IB. No correlation was observed between geographic and genetic distances for both viruses. Panamanian BPEV isolates were divergent, belonging to Groups I and II (nucleotide identities > 87.33%).
Evolutionary analysis showed purifying selection in all encoding regions of both viruses, being stronger in the overlapping region of both STV genes. Finally, recombination was detected in BPEV but not in STV. This is the first report of STV and BPEV in Panama.
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Galipienso, L. & Elvira-González, Laura & Velasco, Leonardo & Herrera Vasquez, Jose & Rubio, Luis & Chiumenti, Michela. (2021). Detection of Persistent Viruses by High-Throughput Sequencing in Tomato and Pepper from Panama: Phylogenetic and Evolutionary Studies. Plants. 10. 2295. 10.3390/plants10112295.