title: Sequence conservation of human cytomegalovirus UL140 open reading frame in clinical strains.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To investigate the variability of human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) UL140 open reading frame (ORF) in clinical strains, and to explore the relationship between the variability of UL140 ORF and different symptoms of HC-MV infection.
  
  
  METHODS
  HCMV UL140 ORF was amplified by polymerase chain reaction and sequenced selectedly in 30 clinical strains.
  
  
  RESULTS
  UL140 ORF of all clinical strains was amplified successfully. Compared with that of Toledo strain, the nucleotide and amino acid sequence identities among all strains were 96.5%-100.0% and 95.2%-100.0%, respectively. All of the nucleotide changes were substitutions. The post-translational modification sites were conserved. The result of phylogenetic tree showed that the strains did not cluster according to different clinical symptoms.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  HCMV UL140 ORF in clinical strains is highly conserved, which may play an important role in HC-MV infection.
authors.affiliation: Virus Laboratory, Shengjing Hospital, China Medical University, Shenyang 110004. qiyingying163@163.com
authors.forename: Ying
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Qi
authors.forename: Yan-ping
authors.initials: YP
authors.lastname: Ma
authors.forename: Rong
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: He
authors.forename: Zheng-rong
authors.initials: ZR
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.forename: Yao-hua
authors.initials: YH
authors.lastname: Ji
authors.forename: Yu-jing
authors.initials: YJ
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.forename: Qiang
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Ruan
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D001483:Base Sequence; D003587:Cytomegalovirus / Q000235:genetics*; D017931:DNA Primers; D004279:DNA, Viral / Q000235:genetics; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D016366:Open Reading Frames; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction; D017386:Sequence Homology, Amino Acid; D014764:Viral Proteins / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics*
chemical_list: D017931:DNA Primers; D004279:DNA, Viral; D014764:Viral Proteins