title: Examination of herpes virus DNA sequences for patterns that resemble transposable elements.
abstract: Herpes viruses are associated with many types of oral tumors and can be tumorigenic in vitro. The mechanisms by which they transform cells remain unknown, but it has been suggested that they contain insertion sequences. Two algorithms were developed to search DNA sequences for the presence of patterns that characterize such elements using either selection or scoring techniques. When randomly shuffled herpes virus sequences were examined each algorithm detected many such patterns but the scoring algorithm found fewer than the selection algorithm. In the herpes virus sequences that are known to contain such patterns the computer techniques found many more than previously reported, indicating that visual inspection alone is not adequate. The frequency of these patterns suggest that although the transforming regions of herpes virus DNA could contain transposable elements experimental confirmation is necessary.
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbiology, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Dental Branch 77225.
authors.forename: E J
authors.initials: EJ
authors.lastname: Shillitoe
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D001483:Base Sequence; D002472:Cell Transformation, Viral; D004251:DNA Transposable Elements; D004279:DNA, Viral; D006801:Humans; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D018139:Simplexvirus
chemical_list: D004251:DNA Transposable Elements; D004279:DNA, Viral