ANNOTATED SEQUENCE RECORD Complete genome sequences of three tomato spotted wilt virus isolates from tomato and pepper plants in Korea and their phylogenetic relationship to other TSWV isolates Jong-Seung Lee • Won Kyong Cho • Mi-Kyeong Kim • Hae-Ryun Kwak • Hong-Soo Choi • Kook-Hyung Kim Received: 20 October 2010 / Accepted: 22 January 2011 / Published online: 13 February 2011 Ó Springer-Verlag 2011 Abstract Tomato spotted wilt virus (TSWV) infects numerous host plants and has three genome segments, called L, M and S. Here, we report the complete genome sequences of three Korean TSWV isolates (TSWV-1 to -3) infecting tomato and pepper plants. Although the nucleo- tide sequence of TSWV-1 genome isolated from tomato is very different from those of TSWV-2 and TSWV-3 iso- lated from pepper, the deduced amino acid sequences of the five TSWV genes are highly conserved among all three TSWV isolates. In phylogenetic analysis, deduced RdRp protein sequences of TSWV-2 and TSWV-3 were clustered together with two previously reported isolates from Japan and Korea, while TSWV-1 grouped together with a Hawaiian isolate. A phylogenetic tree based on N protein sequences, however, revealed four distinct groups of TSWV isolates, and all three Korean isolates belonged to group II, together with many other isolates, mostly from Europe and Asia. Interestingly, most American isolates grouped together as group I. Together, these results sug- gested that these newly identified TSWV isolates might have originated from an Asian ancestor and undergone divergence upon infecting different host plants. Introduction Tomato spotted wilt virus (TSWV), a member of the genus Tospovirus, family Bunyaviridae [7], affects a wide range of host plants, including 900 plant species worldwide [3], causing serious agronomic losses and reducing the quality of fruits and vegetables, especially tomatoes [3, 8]. It has been reported that TSWV is transmitted by thrips in a persistent manner [12]. The TSWV virion varies in size from 80 to 120 nm and has a spherical envelope structure [9]. Previous studies have shown that the TSWV genome is composed of three single-stranded linear segments, large (L), medium (M), and small (S), named according to their lengths [9]. The L RNA (*9 kb) contains an RNA- dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp) in a negative-sense orientation [2]. In contrast, the M (*4.8 kb) and S (*3 kb) RNAs each contain two genes, one in the posi- tive- and the other in the negative-sense orientation [4]. The M RNA encodes the NSm protein and the Gn-Gc glycoprotein, while the S RNA encodes the NSs non- structural and N proteins [1, 6]. In the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) database, a large number of partial sequences related to TSWV are avail- able. However, only one complete genome sequence of an TSWV isolate (Brazilian TSWV BR-01) maintained in Nicotiana rustica was reported previously [1, 2, 6]. Therefore, it is necessary to get the complete genome sequences of TSWV from various other host plants. We report here the complete genome sequences of three TSWV isolates from tomato and pepper plants. We have per- formed phylogenetic analysis of these three TSWV isolates Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s00705-011-0935-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. J.-S. Lee Á W. K. Cho Á K.-H. Kim (&) Department of Agricultural Biotechnology, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Seoul National University, Seoul 151-921, Korea e-mail: kookkim@snu.ac.kr M.-K. Kim Á H.-R. Kwak Á H.-S. Choi Department of Agricultural Biology, National Academy of Agriculture Sciences, Rural Development Administration, Suwon 441-707, Korea 123 Arch Virol (2011) 156:725–728 DOI 10.1007/s00705-011-0935-x