Replicational release of geminivirus genomes from tandemly repeated copies: evidence for rolling-circle replication of a plant viral DNA.

Agrobacterium-mediated inoculation of Nicotiana benthamiana plants with Ti plasmids containing tandem genome repeats derived from different strains of the gemini-virus beet curly top virus (BCTV) resulted in the production of unit-length recombinant progeny genomes in systemically infected plants. When two putative plus-strand origins of replication were present in constructs used as inocula, a replicational escape mechanism was favored that resulted in progeny genomes of a single predominant genotype. The genotype was dependent upon the arrangement of repeated parental genomes in the inocula. Sequencing across the junction between parental BCTV strains in the recombinant progeny allowed mapping of the plus-strand origin of replication to a 20-base-pair sequence within the conserved hairpin found in all geminivirus genomes. In contrast, when inocula contained tandemly repeated BCTV genome sequences but only a single conserved hairpin, a number of different progeny genotypes were simultaneously replicated in infected plants, a result expected if unit-length viral genomes were generated by random intramolecular recombination events. These results and other considerations indicate that geminivirus DNA replication occurs by a rolling-circle mechanism.