Cloning of coat protein gene of soybean mosaic virus and its expression in Escherichia coli.

The 3'-terminal genomic region of the Beijing isolate of soybean mosaic virus (SMV-BJ) has been cloned through technique of polymerase chain reaction (PCR). We have analyzed the nucleotide sequence of 3' region of SMV-BJ genome. Comparisons of the nucleotide and deduced amino acid sequence of SMV-BJ coat protein gene with those of SMV-N strain show 93.4% and 98.5% identity between them, respectively. Alignments of the 3' non-coding sequence in pairs with that of SMV-N strain show homology of 88.8%. It has been found that the SMV coat protein gene is expressed in E. coli by western blot analysis. The coat protein produced in E. coli has the same electrophoretic mobility as the authentic coat protein.