A phylogeographical study of the Turnip mosaic virus population in East Asia reveals an 'emergent' lineage in Japan.

The genetic structure of populations of Turnip mosaic virus (TuMV) in East Asia was assessed by making host range and gene sequence comparisons of 118 isolates utilizing a population genetic approach. Most, but not all, isolates collected from Brassica plants in China infected only Brassica plants, whereas those from Japan infected both Brassica and Raphanus (BR) plants. Analyses of the positions of recombination sites in five regions of the genomes (one third of the full sequence) of the many recombinant isolates were fully congruent with the results of phylogenetic analysis, and at least one recombination type pattern was shared between Chinese and Japanese populations. One lineage of nonrecombinant isolates from the basal-BR lineage was found in 2000 in Kyushu, Japan but none in China, and have since been found over the whole island. The sudden expansion of this basal-BR population was strongly supported by calculations showing the deviations from the neutral equilibrium model for the individual geographical lineages with overall lack of nucleotide diversity, and by analysis of mismatch distribution. Our study shows that the recent Chinese and Japanese TuMV isolates are part of the same population but are discrete lineages.