Nucleotide sequence of bacteriophage G4 DNA.

The 5,577 nucleotide long sequence of bacteriophage G4 DNA has been determined using the 'plus and minus' and chain termination methods of DNA sequencing. This sequence has been compared with that of the closely related bacteriophage phiX174 (refs 1, 55). In the coding regions there is an average of 33.1% nucleotide sequence differences between the two genomes, but the distribution of these changes is not random and the sequence of some genes is more conserved than others. There is less sequence similarity between the untranslated intergenic regions of G4 and phiX174, but despite this the sequences of the J/F, F/G and H/A untranslated spaces in both genomes have similar sized hairpin loops, which may be related to their function.