Summary
The complete genome sequence of the four RNAs of rice stripe virus Zhejiang isolate was determined. In addition to polymerase modules, the pc1 protein encoded on RNA1 harbours an ovarian tumour (OTU) – like cysteine protease signature near its N-terminus, suggesting that the protein might yield the viral polymerase and one or more additional proteins by autoproteolytic cleavage and/or have deubiquitination activity. A novel inverted repeat sequence motif was found to be universal within the intergenic regions of ambisense genome segments of tenuiviruses, supporting the possibility that it may be functionally important, perhaps in regulating transcription termination.