This study identified and characterised three Genomoviruses during a circular DNA-enriched sequencing project aimed at assessing the evolution of Cassava mosaic begomoviruses in Nigeria. Using a combination of rolling circle amplification, Oxford Nanopore Sequencing and targeted amplicon sequencing, three full-length Genomovirus genomes were recovered. The recovered genomes ranged from 2090 to 2188 nucleotides in length, contained two open reading frames (Rep and CP) in an ambisense orientation and shared between 84.81 and 95.37% nucleotide similarity with isolates in the NCBI GenBank repository. Motif analyses confirmed the presence of conserved rolling circle replication (RCR) and helicase motifs in all three isolates; however, one isolate lacked the RCR II motif. Phylogenetic inference using Rep and CP nucleotide sequences suggested that the isolates belonged to a divergent lineage within the Genomovirus family. These findings expand current knowledge of Genomovirus diversity and highlight the potential of cassava as a source for identifying novel CRESS-DNA viruses.

The dataset presented here was obtained by sequencing selected historic herbarium cassava samples collected across Nigeria. Total DNA was extracted from the samples using the CTAB method, after which the samples were enriched by Rolling Circle Amplification (RCA) and then sequenced on the MinION. The dataset consists of raw sequencing data in FASTQ format reflecting microbial diversity in cassava leaf samples. Taxonomic classification of the samples using the Kraken2 PlusPFP-16 database revealed 12 kingdoms, 36 phyla, 67 classes, 154 orders, 273 families, 524 genera, and 895 species across the dataset, with a substantial proportion (77.9%) of reads remaining unclassified following host removal. The data is beneficial for exploring the microbiome diversity of cassava leaves across Nigeria, as well as serving as a reference for future microbial discovery, given the large number of unidentified reads in the dataset.