Apple fruit crinkle viroid (AFCVd) infects apple, hop, and oriental persimmon plants as natural hosts. The genetic diversity of AFCVd populations in persimmons is less well understood than that in apples and hops. In this study, AFCVd was detected in the pericarp of persimmon fruits harvested from a private garden tree in Hyogo, Osaka, Kyoto, and Shiga Prefectures of the Kinki region, Japan. Sequence analyses revealed that the AFCVd population in each persimmon sample comprised at least 2–5 sequence variants. The infectivity of one or two sequence variants in each persimmon sample was examined using dimeric linear RNA transcribed from a cDNA clone containing the dimer of each consensus sequence. Three predominant variants (perHS1, perOK1, and perKU1) had infectivity in tomato plants; however, one variant (perSN1) and a rare variant (perHS2) did not. In contrast, another variant (perSN2) in the persimmon from Shiga was confirmed to be infectious because it had a sequence identical to the predominant infectious variant, perOK1. Examination of the AFCVd population in the Shiga persimmon using restriction enzyme digestion and direct sequencing indicated that the predominant variant was perSN2 rather than perSN1. The results show that the AFCVd populations in persimmons are genetically diverse, with at least one predominant sequence variant identified in each persimmon being capable of infecting tomatoes, and a rare variant that may be incapable of infecting tomatoes.

苹果果皱类病毒 (AFCVd) 作为天然宿主感染苹果、啤酒花和柿子植物。与苹果和啤酒花相比，人们对柿子中 AFCVd 群体遗传多样性的了解较少。在这项研究中，在日本近畿地区兵库县、大阪府、京都府和滋贺县的一棵私人花园树上采摘的柿子果皮中检测到了 AFCVd。序列分析显示，每个柿子样本中的 AFCVd 群体至少包含 2-5 个序列变异。使用从含有每个共有序列二聚体的 cDNA 克隆转录的二聚线性 RNA，检查每个柿子样品中一个或两个序列变体的感染性。三种主要变体（perHS1、perOK1 和 perKU1）在番茄植株中具有感染性；然而，一种变体（perSN1）和一种罕见变体（perHS2）却没有。相比之下，滋贺县柿子中的另一种变体 (perSN2) 被证实具有传染性，因为它的序列与主要传染性变体 perOK1 相同。使用限制酶消化和直接测序对志贺柿子中的 AFCVd 群体进行的检查表明，主要变异是 perSN2 而不是 perSN1。结果表明，柿子中的 AFCVd 群体具有遗传多样性，每个柿子中至少鉴定出一种主要序列变异能够感染番茄，而一种罕见变异可能无法感染番茄。