NUCLEOTIDE SEQUENCE ANALYSIS OF A 30-KB REGION OF THE BOVINE HERPESVIRUS 1 GENOME WHICH EXHIBITS A COLINEAR GENE ARRANGEMENT WITH THE UL21 TO UL4 GENE OF HERPES SIMPLEX VIRUS

Authors: VLCEK, CESTMIR - CZECH ACADEMY OF SCIENCES; BENES, VLADIMIR - CZECH ACADEMY OF SCIENCES; LU, ZHIQIANG - UNIVERSITY OF CONNECTICUT; KUTISH, GERALD - UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA; PACES, VACLAV - CZECH ACADEMY OF SCIENCES; Rock, Daniel; LETCHWORTH, GEOFFREY - UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN; SCHWYZER, MARTIN - UNIVERSITY OF ZURICH, SZ

Submitted to: Virology
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 3/24/1995
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary: Large DNA viruses including the herpesvirus family are genetically complex; they contain genes involved in basic virus replication, viral virulence, viral persistence and evasion of the host immune response. Here we show that a bovine herpesvirus contains a number of genes that are quite similar to those found in other herpesviruses of man and animals. The conservation of these genes in many different herpesviruses suggest that they perform critical viral replication functions common among herpesviruses. Additionally, they suggest that all of these herpesviruses share a distant common ancestor. Identification of biologically significant genes and an understanding of how the genes function in viral infection may have great value for developing more effective control strategies for viral disease.

Technical Abstract: We report the nucleotide sequence of the 19-kb HindIII fragment B of bovine herpesvirus 1 (BHV-1) DNA and adjacent parts of the HindIII A and L fragments, which together span a still completely uncharted 30-kb region located between the glycoprotein H gene and the right end of the unique long segment. The analysis revealed 17 complete open reading frames (ORFs) and 2 ORFs that were interrupted by potential splice donor and acceptor sites. All of these ORFs exhibited strong amino acid sequence homology to the gene products of other alphaherpesviruses. The BHV-1 ORFs were arranged colinearly with the prototype sequence of herpes simplex virus 1 in the range of the UL21 to UL4 genes. Colinearity was also observed with the genes of betaherpesviruses and gamma herpesviruses, although not all ORFs exhibited clear sequence homology. The possible functions of the proteins encoded within the sequenced region are assessed and features found are discussed. Unexpected findings include the following: high amino acid sequence conservation among alphaherpesviruses despite large differences in G + C content, ranging from 45% for varicella zoster virus to 72% for BHV-1; high similarity with other UL20 proteins at the predicted structural level in spite of relatively low amino acid homology; and a 2-kb open reading frame overlapping UL19 in the opposite sense and exhibiting high amino acid similarity to the same area of pseudorabies virus.