Immunology-Vaccinology (B43b), Department of Infectious and Parasitic Diseases (B43b), Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Liège, B-4000 Liège, Belgium.
Virol J. 2011 Aug 16;8:406. doi: 10.1186/1743-422X-8-406.
Bovine herpesvirus 4 (BoHV-4) is a useful model for the human pathogenic gammaherpesviruses Epstein-Barr virus and Kaposi's Sarcoma-associated Herpesvirus. Although genome manipulations of this virus have been greatly facilitated by the cloning of the BoHV-4 V.test strain as a Bacterial Artificial Chromosome (BAC), the lack of a complete genome sequence for this strain limits its experimental use.
In this study, we have determined the complete sequence of BoHV-4 V.test strain by a pyrosequencing approach.
The long unique coding region (LUR) consists of 108,241 bp encoding at least 79 open reading frames and is flanked by several polyrepetitive DNA units (prDNA). As previously suggested, we showed that the prDNA unit located at the left prDNA-LUR junction (prDNA-G) differs from the other prDNA units (prDNA-inner). Namely, the prDNA-G unit lacks the conserved pac-2 cleavage and packaging signal in its right terminal region. Based on the mechanisms of cleavage and packaging of herpesvirus genomes, this feature implies that only genomes bearing left and right end prDNA units are encapsulated into virions.
In this study, we have determined the complete genome sequence of the BAC-cloned BoHV-4 V.test strain and identified genome organization features that could be important in other herpesviruses.
牛疱疹病毒 4（BoHV-4）是人类致病性γ疱疹病毒 EBV 和卡波济肉瘤相关疱疹病毒的有用模型。尽管通过将 BoHV-4 V.test 株克隆为细菌人工染色体（BAC）极大地促进了该病毒的基因组操作，但该株的完整基因组序列的缺乏限制了其实验用途。
在本研究中，我们通过焦磷酸测序方法确定了 BoHV-4 V.test 株的完整序列。
长独特编码区（LUR）由 108241bp 组成，编码至少 79 个开放阅读框，两侧是几个多重复 DNA 单元（prDNA）。如前所述，我们表明位于左侧 prDNA-LUR 交界处（prDNA-G）的 prDNA 单元与其他 prDNA 单元（prDNA-inner）不同。即，prDNA-G 单元在其右侧末端区域缺乏保守的 pac-2 切割和包装信号。根据疱疹病毒基因组切割和包装的机制，该特征意味着只有携带左右末端 prDNA 单元的基因组才能被包装到病毒粒子中。
在本研究中，我们确定了 BAC 克隆的 BoHV-4 V.test 株的完整基因组序列，并鉴定了可能对其他疱疹病毒很重要的基因组组织特征。
