Nucleotide sequence, serology and symptomatology suggest that vanilla necrosis potyvirus is a strain of watermelon mosaic virus II.

Vanilla necrosis potyvirus (VNV) is the cause of significant losses to the South Pacific islands vanilla crop. The gene for the coat protein of VNV has been cloned and sequenced. Comparison of this gene with other potyviral coat protein sequences revealed 97% nucleotide sequence homology (98% amino acid homology) to a US isolate of watermelon mosaic virus II (WMV-II), 93% nucleotide sequence homology (96% amino acid homology) to an Australian isolate of WMV-II and 81% nucleotide sequence homology (88% amino acid homology) to soybean mosaic virus-N (SMV-N). Serological analysis, by Western blot and ELISA, confirmed the close relationship between VNV and WMV-II. Furthermore, a limited host range determination found VNV and WMV-II able to infect the same series of test plants. However, symptoms differed significantly on three test species demonstrating that VNV and WMV-II are not identical in biological properties. We suggest that VNV be renamed WMV-II (Tonga).