Beauveria bassiana, an entomopathogenic fungus, is used for arthropod pest control worldwide. Here, we report the discovery and characterization of a novel double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) mycovirus, Beauveria bassiana chrysovirus 2 (BbCV-2), isolated from a Chinese B. bassiana strain. The genome sequence of the virus was determined by metagenomic sequencing, RT-PCR, and RACE cloning and was found to consist of four dsRNA segments that are 3441 bp, 2779 bp, 2925 bp, and 2688 bp long, respectively. Each dsRNA segment contains a single ORF. The ORF of dsRNA1 encodes a 1114-amino-acid (aa) protein (123.4 kDa) with a conserved RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp) motif, the sequence of which showed the highest identity of only 16.13% to that of Beauveria bassiana chrysovirus-1 (BbCV-1). The ORF of dsRNA2 encodes an 805-aa coat protein (CP) (84.7 kDa). The ORFs of dsRNAs 3 and 4 encodes proteins of undetermined function. The virus is a new member of the family Chrysoviridae from B. bassiana.
© 2021. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Austria, part of Springer Nature.