Conservation of the segment 4 gene sequence and of a leucine zipper motif in VP4 among five US bluetongue viruses.
Full-length cDNA copies of the segment 4 (M1) genes of US Bluetongue viruses serotype-2, -10, -11, -13, and -17 were selectively amplified using genomic double-stranded RNA segments from purified BTV virions as templates and a modified polymerase chain reaction (Clamp-R). They were then cloned into pUC19 plasmids and both strands of several clones were sequenced. The length of all five segment 4 genes is 1981 nucleotides, which is 30 nucleotides shorter than that of the BTV serotype-10 reported by Y. Yu, A. Fukusho, and P. Roy (Nucleic Acids Res. 15, 7206 (1987)). The 5'- and 3'-noncoding regions of all five segment 4 genes are identical among all serotypes. The plus sense strand of the BTV segment 4 gene, which encodes the VP4 protein, possesses a single long open reading frame with an initiation codon (ATG) at nucleotides 9-11 and a stop codon (TAA) at nucleotides 1941-1943. This open reading frame encodes for a protein of 644 amino acid residues with a predicted molecular weight of about 75 kDa and a pI of +7 to +7.9. A potential leucine zipper motif was detected near the carboxyl terminus of the deduced VP4 amino acid sequence. The phylogenetic analysis using the sequences of these five cognate segment 4 genes is consistent with the results of our previous phylogenetic studies of cognate genome segments 5, 6, 8, 9, and 10. Serotype-10, -11, -13, and -17 are closely related and serotype-2 is the most distantly related among the five US BTV serotypes.
Program in Molecular Biology, Utah State University, Logan 84322-5500.
I J
IJ
Huang
E
E
Hayama
Y J
YJ
Jeong
J K
JK
Li
D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D001483:Base Sequence; D001820:Bluetongue virus / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics*; D002213:Capsid / Q000235:genetics*; D036022:Capsid Proteins; D003001:Cloning, Molecular; D017124:Conserved Sequence; D004279:DNA, Viral; D005814:Genes, Viral; D016350:Leucine Zippers / Q000235:genetics*; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010802:Phylogeny; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction; D012689:Sequence Homology, Nucleic Acid
D036022:Capsid Proteins; D004279:DNA, Viral; C060339:VP4 protein, Rotavirus