Purification, Serology, and In Vitro Translation of an Alyce-clover Isolate of Blackeye Cowpea Mosaic Virus. G. S. Zhao, Graduate Research Assistant, Department of Agronomy and Plant Pathology, University of Florida, Gainesville 32611. D. D. Baltensperger, E. Hiebert, D. E. Purcifull, and J. R. Edwardson. Associate Professor, and Professors, Departments of Agronomy and Plant Pathology, University of Florida, Gainesville 32611. Plant Dis. 75:254-257. Accepted for publication 4 September 1990. Copyright 1991 The American Phytopathological Society. DOI: 10.1094/PD-75-0254.

An isolate of blackeye cowpea mosaic virus (BlCMV) from alyce-clover (Alysicarpus vaginalis), designated as BlCMV-AC, and a Florida isolate of BlCMV (BlCMV-FL) were purified from systemically infected leaves of cowpea or white lupine. The A_260/280nm ratios obtained for purified preparations of BlCMV-AC and BlCMV-FL averaged 1.25 and 1.20, respectively. Analysis of purified BlCMV-AC by sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis revealed a major and a minor protein component with relative molecular weights of 34,500 and 31,000, respectively. Isolate BlCMV-AC is serologically closely related to BlCMV-FL and to an isolate of BlCMV from South Carolina but is more distantly related to cowpea aphidborne mosaic virus, peanut stripe virus, and nine other potyviruses. The profiles of the translation products of BlCMV-AC and BlCMV-FL in rabbit reticulocyte lysate were similar but not identical. The genomes of the two viruses appeared to differ at their 5’ ends.