Characterization of the guinea pig cytomegalovirus genome locus that encodes homologs of human cytomegalovirus major immediate-early genes, UL128, and UL130.
We reported previously that the guinea pig cytomegalovirus (CMV) stock purchased from the American Type Culture Collection contained two types of strains, one containing and the other lacking a 1.6 kb locus, and that the 1.6 kb locus was required for efficient viral growth in animals but not in cell culture. In this study, we characterized the genetic contents of the locus, and found that i) the 1.6 kb locus encodes homologs of human CMV UL128 and UL130, GP129 and GP131, respectively, ii) these genes are expressed with late gene kinetics, iii) GP131 protein (pGP131) localized to cell surface only in the presence of glycoproteins H and L, and iv) pGP131 is a virion component. Therefore, it is plausible that pGP131 forms a complex with glycoproteins H and L and becomes a virion component as does UL130 protein (pUL130). Since pUL130 is one of the glycoproteins essential for infection of endothelial and epithelial cells in human and primates, functional and immunological analyses of this GPCMV homolog of pUL130 may help to illuminate the in vivo role of pUL130.
Yamada
Souichi
S
Department of Virology I, National Institute of Infectious Diseases, 1-23-1 Toyama, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 162-8640, Japan.
Nozawa
Naoki
N
Katano
Harutaka
H
Fukui
Yoshiko
Y
Tsuda
Mihoko
M
Tsutsui
Yoshihiro
Y
Kurane
Ichiro
I
Inoue
Naoki
N
D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D002478:Cells, Cultured; D004279:DNA, Viral / Q000235:genetics; D005260:Female; D017781:Genes, Immediate-Early; D016679:Genome, Viral; D006168:Guinea Pigs; D008562:Membrane Glycoproteins / Q000235:genetics*; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D019211:Roseolovirus / Q000235:genetics*; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D017386:Sequence Homology, Amino Acid; D014759:Viral Envelope Proteins / Q000235:genetics*
D004279:DNA, Viral; D008562:Membrane Glycoproteins; C532797:UL128 protein, human cytomegalovirus; C502890:UL130 protein, human cytomegalovirus; D014759:Viral Envelope Proteins