Genetic diversity and recombination analysis in the coat protein gene of Banana bract mosaic virus.

Banana bract mosaic virus (BBrMV), a member of the genus Potyvirus, family Potyviridae, is the causal agent of the bract mosaic disease (BBrMD) that causes serious yield losses in banana and plantain in India and the Philippines. In this study, global genetic diversity and molecular evolution of BBrMV based on the capsid protein (CP) gene were investigated. Multiple alignments of CP gene of 49 BBrMV isolates showed nucleotide (nt) and amino acid (aa) identity of 79-100 and 80-100 %, respectively. Phylogenetic analysis revealed that except two Indians isolates (TN14 and TN16), all isolates clustered together. Eleven recombination events were detected using Recombination Detection Program. Codon-based maximum-likelihood methods revealed that most of the codons in the CP gene were under negative or neutral selection except for codons 28, 43, and 92 which were under positive selection. Gene flow between BBrMV populations of banana and cardamom was relatively frequent but not between two different populations of banana infecting isolates identified in this study. This is the first report on genetic diversity, and evolution of BBrMV isolates based on recombination and phylogenetic analysis in India.