Pignatelli S, Dal Monte P, Landini M P
Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, Division of Microbiology, University of Bologna, St Orsola General Hospital, Via Massarenti 9, 40138 Bologna, Italy1.
J Gen Virol. 2001 Nov;82(Pt 11):2777-2784. doi: 10.1099/0022-1317-82-11-2777.
Clinical isolates of human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) show differences in tissue tropism, severity of clinical manifestations and ability to establish persistent or latent infections, characteristics that are thought to be related to genomic variation among strains. This work analysed the genomic variants of a new HCMV polymorphic locus, open reading frame (ORF) UL73. This ORF encodes the envelope glycoprotein gpUL73 (gN), which associates in a high molecular mass complex with its counterpart, gM, and induces a neutralizing antibody response in the host. Detailed sequence analysis of ORF UL73 and its gene product from clinical isolates and laboratory-adapted strains shows that this glycoprotein is highly polymorphic, in the N-terminal region in particular. gpUL73 hypervariability is not randomly distributed, but the identified genomic variants are clearly clustered into four distinct genotypes (gN-1, gN-2, gN-3 and gN-4), which are not associated with the gB subtype.
人巨细胞病毒（HCMV）的临床分离株在组织嗜性、临床表现严重程度以及建立持续性或潜伏性感染的能力方面存在差异，这些特征被认为与毒株间的基因组变异有关。这项研究分析了一个新的HCMV多态性位点开放阅读框（ORF）UL73的基因组变异。该ORF编码包膜糖蛋白gpUL73（gN），它与其对应物gM形成高分子量复合物，并在宿主体内诱导中和抗体反应。对临床分离株和实验室适应株的ORF UL73及其基因产物进行的详细序列分析表明，这种糖蛋白具有高度多态性，尤其是在N端区域。gpUL73的高变异性并非随机分布，而是所鉴定的基因组变异明显聚类为四种不同的基因型（gN-1、gN-2、gN-3和gN-4），它们与gB亚型无关。
