n recent years, many viruses that infect grapevine (Vitis vinifera),have been identified in Greece (Katsarou et al., 2023; Panailidouet al., 2023). Further investigation to determine the presence ofother known and unknown viruses in commercial vineyards hasled to the detection of Grapevine pararetrovirus (GPRV). GPRV wasdiscovered in 2022 in Russia (Republic of Dagestan) in samplesshowing symptoms of viral disease (Shvets et al., 2022). GPRV isa pararetrovirus (family Caulimoviridae) whose genome is circulardouble-stranded DNA ranging from 7.2 to 8.5 Kb in size (Bhat et al.,2016).During the 2022 growing season, leaf samples from 55 plantswere obtained from a commercial vineyard located in the prefec-ture of Messinia, a significant grapevine-growing region in Greece.Samples from each grower were pooled and sequenced by high-throughput sequencing (HTS) on an Illumina Sequencer, after hav-ing extracted total RNA using a Spectrum™ Plant Total RNA Kit(Sigma-Aldrich, USA). One pooled sample of leaves from four plants,collected in the municipality of Trifillia, had a total of 93,694,500reads, with 35,320 mapping to the genome of GPRV (average depth579.1, coverage 98%). To confirm infection by GPRV, each of the (9) (PDF) First report of Grapevine pararetrovirus infecting grapevine in Greece. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/382075631_First_report_of_Grapevine_pararetrovirus_infecting_grapevine_in_Greece#fullTextFileContent [accessed Sep 18 2024]. our samples (prior to pooling) was tested by RT-PCR using the spe-cific primers GPRV_2669F (5′-TAGGAGACTACTCTGACGACG-3′) andGPRV_3086R (5′-ACTGGAACTCTTCTTCTCTGGT-3′) (Shvets et al.,2022), which amplified a 418 nt fragment within ORF5 of the virusgenome. PCR was conducted in 40 cycles with the following condi-tions: 95◦C for 30 seconds, 54◦C for 30 seconds and 72◦C for 30seconds. The expected DNA fragment was amplified from two of thefour samples tested. The PCR products were sequenced bidirection-ally by Sanger sequencing (Genewiz, Germany) and the sequence ofthe amplified fragments was 99% identical to the HTS contig. Twosequences were submitted to the GenBank (Accession Nos. PP584599and PP584600). They had 91.4% nucleotide identity with GPRV isolateD1454w (OP886324.1) from Russia.Leaf samples had a mild yellowing but as another virus (Grapevinefleck virus) and viroid (Grapevine yellow speckle viroid-1) were alsodetected, no conclusion can be made on possible symptoms. To thebest of our knowledge, this is the first report of GPRV from Greece.This shows that the distribution of GPRV may be wider than previ-ously thought and highlights the necessity for further surveillance todetermine the true distribution (9) (PDF) First report of Grapevine pararetrovirus infecting grapevine in Greece. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/382075631_First_report_of_Grapevine_pararetrovirus_infecting_grapevine_in_Greece#fullTextFileContent [accessed Sep 18 2024].

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