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Submitted to: Virus Research
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal Publication Acceptance Date: 7/24/1995 Publication Date: N/A Citation: N/A Interpretive Summary: Transmissible gastroenteritis (TGE) is one of the most economically important diseases of pigs. It has been estimated to cost the U.S. pig producers about 100 million dollars annually due to death and poor growth of infected pigs. Because the current vaccines for this disease are only partially effective we are attempting to develop a new, innovative vaccine that is based on the combination of parts of two viruses. One of these viruses (called pig adenovirus) can be thought of as the carrier. The other virus of the combination is the one that causes TGE. However, before parts of these viruses can be combined we must know more about the structure of the carrier virus. In this study we used techniques of present-day molecular biology to learn more about one of the most important parts of the carrier virus, and in so doing we moved closer to our goal of a new, improved vaccine for TGE. Technical Abstract: The complete nucleotide sequence of the putative fiber protein of a porcine adenovirus isolate, NADC-1, was determined. The coding sequence for the fiber protein was found to be 2112 nucleotides, predicting a 703 amino acid protein with a calculated molecular mass of 76,681 Da. The coding sequence is located between 86 and 92.5 map units. A polyadenylation signal was found 44 bases downstream of the stop codon. Northern hybridization analysis identified a band at 2.4 kb, which likely includes the primary transcript plus a tripartite leader (typically found with adenovirus transcripts) and a polyA(+) tail. The predicted NADC-1 fiber protein was found to have a tail domain comparable in size and sequence to most adenovirus fiber proteins, a comparatively short shaft region, and a head region that was more than twice as large as that of other adenovirus fiber proteins. Each of the three structural domains (tail, shaft, and head) of the predicted NADC-1 fiber protein was found to be most similar to the corresponding domain of a different mammalian adenovirus. The NADC-1 fiber head contained an RGD sequence, a motif that is found in the penton protein of other adenoviruses. Furthermore, the predicted amino acid sequence of the C-terminal half of the NADC-1 fiber head has significant homology to S-lectin proteins, a characteristic not shared with other adenovirus fiber proteins. Thus the predicted amino acid sequence of the NADC-1 fiber head is unique among adenoviruses for which the sequence of the fiber protein is known. |
