Evidence of viral genome rearrangement during adaptation to a new host

In this work we decided to test the ability of 12 viruses to infect new hosts. To do so we transfected partially purified viral particles into protoplasts obtained from two virus-free isolates of two fungal species (P. janczewskii and Chryphonectria parasitica). This work allowed us to characterize better the molecular biology of virus PaPlV. Our results, confirmed that PaPlV is an autonomous monopartite dsRNA virus showing similarity with members of the Partitiviride family, but lacking the second RNA encoding for the capsid protein. We also identified two mutations shared by PaPlV infecting two distinct C. parasitica isolates that might be involved in the adaptation to the new host.