Segra has just announced the publication of a whitepaper that talks about recent identification of mitoviruses(1) in cannabis cultivars.
The whitepaper builds upon work of two independent groups that have reported mitovirus in cannabis.
Mitoviruses are different to viruses.
Firstly, they lack a capsid(2) and viral envelope(3).
Fungi is said to act as a natural host, but as the researchers discovered, not in the case of the mitovirus they found in cannabis.
Segra developed a PCR test based on the published cannabis mitovirus (CaMV1) sequences and screened a subset of the company's cultivar library for presence.
An astounding 77% of cultivars screened so far have been detected with CaMV1, but the number might not be as bad as first thought, possibly because it doesn't seem to be causing any obvious performance or potency issues.
It might even be something that's beneficial, possibly in a symbiotic way similar to a mycorrizal relationship/association.
With this and many other things in mind, Segra has started to look deeper, and the whitepaper is the first step in knowing more.
Link and refs are below.
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