title: Sequence and evolutionary relationships of African swine fever virus thymidine kinase.
abstract: The thymidine kinase gene of African swine fever virus was mapped in a 1.4-kb EcoRI-PstI fragment located in the left half of the Eco RI K fragment of African swine fever virus DNA by using degenerate oligonucleotide probes derived from regions of the thymidine kinase sequence conserved in several poxviruses, man, mouse, and chicken. The nucleotide sequence of this region revealed an open reading frame of 196 codons, whose translated amino acid sequence showed significant similarity to the thymidine kinases of vaccinia virus, variola virus, monkeypox virus, shope fibroma virus, fowlpox virus, capripox virus, man, mouse, and chicken. The similarity scores obtained after comparison of known thymidine kinase sequences indicated that the African swine fever virus thymidine kinase is more distantly related than the poxvirus thymidine kinases to their cellular homologs. The evolutionary implications of these findings are discussed.
authors.affiliation: Centro de Biología Molecular (CSIC-UAM), Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad Autónoma, Canto Blanco, Madrid, Spain.
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Blasco
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: López-Otín
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Muñóz
authors.forename: E O
authors.initials: EO
authors.lastname: Bockamp
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Simón-Mateo
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Viñuela
mesh_terms: D000358:African Swine Fever Virus / Q000201:enzymology / Q000235:genetics*; D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D001483:Base Sequence; D005075:Biological Evolution; D002645:Chickens; D004279:DNA, Viral / Q000032:analysis; D006801:Humans; D007497:Iridoviridae / Q000235:genetics*; D051379:Mice; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D015183:Restriction Mapping; D012689:Sequence Homology, Nucleic Acid; D013937:Thymidine Kinase / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D004279:DNA, Viral; D013937:Thymidine Kinase