Abstract:Twenty-one Laodelphax striatellus Fallén isofemale lines infected with Rice stripe virus(RSV) were collected from Jiangsu, Yunnan, Shandong and Hebei Province, China. The RSV coat protein(cp) gene was amplified using RT-PCR, generating a fragment with the size of 1 000 bp. Sequence analysis revealed that the RSV-cp contained 969 bp which encoded 322 amino acids. Further analysis with DNAstar software showed that the identities of cp nucleotide and amino acid sequences among the isolates ranged from 95.7% to 100% and 96.0% to 100%, respectively. The results together with the 32 sequence data published previously suggested that RSV-cp was conserved and had little molecular variation. The results also suggested that the genetic diversity of RSV was strongly associated with its geographical origin and the virus could be grouped into three geographical populations, i.e.Yunnan, China and Coastal areas of China and Japan. The genetic diversity of RSV was also associated with its host origin. Within a geographical location, RSV could be grouped into Laodelphax striatellus Fallén and rice populations.