Here, we report the genome sequence and evidence for transcriptional activity of
a virus-like element in the native Chilean berry tree Aristotelia chilensis. We
propose to name the endogenous sequence as Aristotelia chilensis Virus 1 (AcV1).
High-throughput sequencing of the genome of this tree uncovered an endogenous
viral element, with a size of 7122 bp, corresponding to the complete genome of
AcV1. Its sequence contains three open reading frames (ORFs): ORFs 1 and 2
shares 66%-73% amino acid similarity with members of the Caulimoviridae virus
family, especially the Petunia vein clearing virus (PVCV), Petuvirus genus. ORF1
encodes a movement protein (MP); ORF2 a Reverse Transcriptase (RT) and a
Ribonuclease H (RNase H) domain; and ORF3 showed no amino acid sequence
similarity with any other known virus proteins. Analogous to other known
endogenous pararetrovirus sequences (EPRVs), AcV1 is integrated in the genome of
Maqui Berry and showed low viral transcriptional activity, which was detected by
deep sequencing technology (DNA and RNA-seq). Phylogenetic analysis of AcV1 and
other pararetroviruses revealed a closer resemblance with Petuvirus. Overall,
our data suggests that AcV1 could be a new member of Caulimoviridae family,
genus Petuvirus, and the first evidence of this kind of virus in a fruit plant.
