A new point mutation in the HC-Pro of potato virus Y is involved in tobacco vein necrosis.

Tobacco vein necrosis (TVN) is a complex phenomenon regulated by different genetic determinants mapped in the HC-Pro protein (amino acids N330, K391 and E410) and in two regions of potato virus Y (PVY) genome, corresponding to the cytoplasmic inclusion (CI) protein and the nuclear inclusion protein a-protease (NIa-Pro), respectively. A new determinant of TVN was discovered in the MK isolate of PVY which, although carried the HC-Pro determinants associated to TVN, did not induce TVN. The HC-Pro open reading frame (ORF) of the necrotic infectious clone PVY N605 was replaced with that of the non-necrotic MK isolate, which differed only by one amino acid at position 392 (T392 instead of I392). The cDNA clone N605_MKHCPro inoculated in tobacco induced only weak mosaics at the systemic level, demostrating that the amino acid at position 392 is a new determinant for TVN. No significant difference in accumulation in tobacco was observed between N605 and N605_MKHCPro. Since phylogenetic analyses showed that the loss of necrosis in tobacco has occurred several times independently during PVY evolution, these repeated evolutions strongly suggest that tobacco necrosis is a costly trait in PVY.