The terminal a sequence of the herpes simplex virus genome contains the promoter of a gene located in the repeat sequences of the L component.
The herpes simplex virus DNA genome consists of two covalently linked components, L and S. The unique sequences of the L component are flanked by 9-kilobase-pair inverted repeat sequences ab and b'a', whereas those of the S component are flanked by 6.5-kilobase-pair inverted repeat sequences c'a' and ca. We report that the 500-base-pair a sequence contains the promoter-regulatory domain and the transcription initiation site of a diploid gene, the coding sequences of which are located in the b sequences of the inverted repeats of the L component. The chimeric gene constructed by fusion of the a sequence to the coding sequences of the thymidine kinase gene and recombined into the viral genome was regulated as a gamma 1 gene. The size of the protein predicted from its sequence is 358 amino acids; it was designated as infected cell protein (ICP) 34.5. Thus, the inverted repeats flanking the unique sequences of the L component contain two genes specifying ICP0 and ICP34.5, respectively. Moreover, in addition to the cis-acting sites for the inversion of L and S components relative to each other, for cleavage of unit length DNA molecules from head-to-tail concatemers, and for packaging of the DNA into capsids, the a sequence also contains the promoter-regulatory domain and transcription initiation sites of a gene.
D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D001483:Base Sequence; D002874:Chromosome Mapping; D004279:DNA, Viral / Q000235:genetics*; D004720:Endonucleases; D005786:Gene Expression Regulation; D005814:Genes, Viral; D011401:Promoter Regions, Genetic; D012333:RNA, Messenger / Q000235:genetics; D012091:Repetitive Sequences, Nucleic Acid; D018139:Simplexvirus / Q000235:genetics*; D015719:Single-Strand Specific DNA and RNA Endonucleases; D013937:Thymidine Kinase / Q000235:genetics
D004279:DNA, Viral; D012333:RNA, Messenger; D013937:Thymidine Kinase; D004720:Endonucleases; D015719:Single-Strand Specific DNA and RNA Endonucleases