Secondary structures of Potato spindle tuber viroid variants detected in Slovenia

Abstract

A survey of Potato spindle tuber viroid was initiated in Slovenia in 2006. Until the end of 2010, 100 samples of ornamental plants were found to be infected. Analysis of 96 complete master sequences of Slovene samples revealed new genetic variants. Our sequence variants showed considerable variation in their predicted secondary structure. The variability was observed in the pathogenic, central and variable domains. In several cases even single mutations were sufficient for the change in predicted secondary structure.

Keywords

• Potato spindle tuber viroid
• PSTVd
• pospiviroid
• predicted secondary structure
• sequence variants