Characterization of a Novel RNA Virus Discovered in the Autumnal Moth Epirrita autumnata in Sweden

de Miranda, Joachim R.; Hedman, Harald; Onorati, Piero; Stephan, Jörg; Karlberg, Olof; Bylund, Helena; Terenius, Olle

The phylogenetic analyses (Figure 3 ) confirm the broad association of the Abisko virus with the negeviruses, as implied by its genome organization, with wider affiliation to the plant-infecting Virgaviridae [7] . It lies in the middle of a poorly resolved section of the negeviruses together with the plant-infecting cileviruses, which have a quite different genome organization (Figure 1 ). The Abiskovirus RdRp and coat protein (ORF-2), are also closely related to their homologues in the Virgaviridae, which will have contributed to the uncertainty of its phylogenetic placement within the negeviridae. This is in itself not particularly unusual: RNA viruses in particular are well capable of acquiring gene cassettes from a variety of different origins, including related viruses [30] and even hosts [31] . However, it makes both the classification and likely host origin of the virus difficult to establish.