Li G, Chen N, Roper R L, Feng Z, Hunter A, Danila M, Lefkowitz E J, Buller R M L, Upton C
Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology, University of Victoria, Ring Road, Petch Bldg, Rm 150, Victoria, BC, Canada V8W 3P6.
Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology, St Louis University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO 63104, USA.
J Gen Virol. 2005 Nov;86(Pt 11):2969-2977. doi: 10.1099/vir.0.81331-0.
Rabbitpox virus (RPXV) is highly virulent for rabbits and it has long been suspected to be a close relative of vaccinia virus. To explore these questions, the complete coding region of the rabbitpox virus genome was sequenced to permit comparison with sequenced strains of vaccinia virus and other orthopoxviruses. The genome of RPXV strain Utrecht (RPXV-UTR) is 197 731 nucleotides long, excluding the terminal hairpin structures at each end of the genome. The RPXV-UTR genome has 66.5 % A + T content, 184 putative functional genes and 12 fragmented ORF regions that are intact in other orthopoxviruses. The sequence of the RPXV-UTR genome reveals that two RPXV-UTR genes have orthologues in variola virus (VARV; the causative agent of smallpox), but not in vaccinia virus (VACV) strains. These genes are a zinc RING finger protein gene (RPXV-UTR-008) and an ankyrin repeat family protein gene (RPXV-UTR-180). A third gene, encoding a chemokine-binding protein (RPXV-UTR-001/184), is complete in VARV but functional only in some VACV strains. Examination of the evolutionary relationship between RPXV and other orthopoxviruses was carried out using the central 143 kb DNA sequence conserved among all completely sequenced orthopoxviruses and also the protein sequences of 49 gene products present in all completely sequenced chordopoxviruses. The results of these analyses both confirm that RPXV-UTR is most closely related to VACV and suggest that RPXV has not evolved directly from any of the sequenced VACV strains, since RPXV contains a 719 bp region not previously identified in any VACV.
兔痘病毒（RPXV）对兔子具有高度致病性，长期以来人们一直怀疑它是痘苗病毒的近亲。为了探究这些问题，对兔痘病毒基因组的完整编码区进行了测序，以便与已测序的痘苗病毒株和其他正痘病毒进行比较。兔痘病毒乌得勒支株（RPXV-UTR）的基因组长度为197731个核苷酸，不包括基因组两端的末端发夹结构。RPXV-UTR基因组的A + T含量为66.5%，有184个推定的功能基因和12个在其他正痘病毒中完整的片段化开放阅读框区域。RPXV-UTR基因组序列显示，有两个RPXV-UTR基因在天花病毒（VARV；天花的病原体）中有直系同源基因，但在痘苗病毒（VACV）株中没有。这些基因是一个锌指蛋白基因（RPXV-UTR-008）和一个锚蛋白重复家族蛋白基因（RPXV-UTR-180）。第三个基因编码一种趋化因子结合蛋白（RPXV-UTR-001/184），在VARV中是完整的，但仅在一些VACV株中具有功能。利用所有完全测序的正痘病毒中保守的中央143 kb DNA序列以及所有完全测序的脊索痘病毒中存在的49个基因产物的蛋白质序列，对RPXV与其他正痘病毒之间的进化关系进行了研究。这些分析结果既证实了RPXV-UTR与VACV关系最为密切，又表明RPXV并非直接从任何已测序的VACV株进化而来，因为RPXV含有一个719 bp的区域，该区域在任何VACV中都未曾被鉴定过。
