Natural recombinant tobacco rattle tobravirus (TRV) isolates contain sequences from a different tobravirus, pea early browning virus (PEBV). To characterize the sequence requirements for viable recombinant formation hybrid cDNA clones of RNA2 of PEBV and TRV were assembled. Inclusion of 320 nt from the 5h terminus of PEBV or 335 nt from the 5h terminus of TRV in the hybrid RNAs was sufficient to permit their replication by, respectively, PEBV RNA1 or TRV RNA1 regardless of the origin of the 3h terminal region. However, PEBV RNA1 but not TRV RNA1 was sometimes able to support low level replication of RNA2 containing the heterologous 5h terminal region. In vitro translation of PEBV transcripts containing 5h noncoding region deletions supported the hypothesis that in vivo the PEBV coat protein (CP) is expressed from a subgenomic RNA and that, therefore, in the recombinants the CP subgenomic promoter probably is recognized by the replicase of the heterologous virus.The tobraviruses, which include tobacco rattle virus (TRV) and pea early browning virus (PEBV), have a genome comprising two single-stranded, positive-sense RNAs. The larger genomic RNA (RNA1, ca. 7000 nt) encodes all the functions necessary for replication and intraplant movement and can cause systemic infection in the absence of the smaller RNA (RNA2, ca. 2000-4000 nt) which encodes the coat protein and in some instances one or more additional proteins. The tobraviruses are differentiated from one another by host range, serological properties and by their ability to form viable pseudorecombinant isolates only when both RNAs are derived from the same virus. Thus, for example, RNA2 of different isolates of TRV can be successfully combined with RNA1 from any isolate of TRV but RNA2 of PEBV cannot be combined with TRV RNA1 (Harrison & Robinson, 1986 ;Robinson & Harrison, 1985).This situation is complicated by the existence of so-called anomalous isolates of TRV which cause infections typical of TRV but react with antisera specific for PEBV. Two such isolates have been studied in some detail ; I6 is serologically related to the British serotype of PEBV (PEBV-B), while TCM is serologically related to Dutch PEBV (PEBV-D) (Angenent et al., 1986 ;Robinson et al., 1987). DNA sequencing of the termini of I6 RNA2 showed that about 275 nt at the 5h end are from TRV but that the 3h end was derived from PEBV (Robinson, 1994). TRV isolate TCM has an even more unusual construction ; about 150 nt at the 5h end are from TRV RNA2, the central 2100 nt are from PEBV-D RNA2, while 1100 nt at the 3h terminus are from TRV RNA1 (Angenent et al., 1986). These isolates are thought to have arisen by recombination during replication in plants infected with both viruses. Recombination between TRV RNAs 1 and 2 has been detected during passage of a TRV isolate derived from an infectious cDNA clone (Hernandez et al., 1996) but experimental demonstration of recombination between TRV and PEBV has not been achieved.Although natural recombinant isolates of TRV have been found, no isolates o...