Some properties of an isolate of tobacco rattle virus from Northern Ireland

A virus obtained from soil in which potato plants had shown severe spraing symptoms induced symptoms on indicator plants typical of tobacco rattle virus (TRY). Purified virus preparations of a local-lesion isolate contained particles of two modal lengths, 192 nm and 94 nm containing RNA molecules of mol. wt 2.4 × 10⁶ and 1.23 × 10⁶. Virus coat protein had a mol. wt of c. 21 500. The virus was serologically distantly related to TRY (SYM) and pea early browning virus (PEBV) SP5, but did not react with TRY (CAM) or TRY (PRN) antisera. However, cDNA hybridisation indicated that the virus was more closely related to TRY (PRN) than either TRY (SYM) or PEBV (SP5). The virus isolate has been designated TRY (NI).