Identification and characterization of duck plague virus glycoprotein C gene and gene product.
BACKGROUND
Viral envelope proteins have been proposed to play significant roles in the process of viral infection.


RESULTS
In this study, an envelope protein gene, gC (NCBI GenBank accession no. EU076811), was expressed and characterized from duck plague virus (DPV), a member of the family herpesviridae. The gene encodes a protein of 432 amino acids with a predicted molecular mass of 45 kDa. Sequence comparisons, multiple alignments and phylogenetic analysis showed that DPV gC has several features common to other identified herpesvirus gC, and was genetically close to the gallid herpervirus.Antibodies raised in rabbits against the pET32a-gC recombinant protein expressed in Escherichia coli BL21 (DE3) recognized a 45-KDa DPV-specific protein from infected duck embryo fibroblast (DEF) cells. Transcriptional and expression analysis, using real-time fluorescent quantitative PCR (FQ-PCR) and Western blot detection, revealed that the transcripts encoding DPV gC and the protein itself appeared late during infection of DEF cells. Immunofluorescence localization further demonstrated that the gC protein exhibited substantial cytoplasm fluorescence in DPV-infected DEF cells.


CONCLUSIONS
In this work, the DPV gC protein was successfully expressed in a prokaryotic expression system, and we presented the basic properties of the DPV gC product for the first time. These properties of the gC protein provided a prerequisite for further functional analysis of this gene.
Avian Diseases Research Center, College of Veterinary Medicine of Sichuan Agricultural University, Ya'an, Sichuan 625014, China.
Bei
B
Lian
Chao
C
Xu
Anchun
A
Cheng
Mingshu
M
Wang
Dekang
D
Zhu
Qihui
Q
Luo
Renyong
R
Jia
Fengjun
F
Bi
Zhengli
Z
Chen
Yi
Y
Zhou
Zexia
Z
Yang
Xiaoyue
X
Chen
D000818:Animals; D000914:Antibodies, Viral / Q000302:isolation & purification; D015153:Blotting, Western; D002478:Cells, Cultured; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D003593:Cytoplasm / Q000737:chemistry; D004372:Ducks; D004926:Escherichia coli / Q000235:genetics; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling; D006564:Herpesviridae / Q000235:genetics* / Q000502:physiology; D008970:Molecular Weight; D010802:Phylogeny; D011817:Rabbits; D011994:Recombinant Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000276:immunology; D016415:Sequence Alignment; D017386:Sequence Homology, Amino Acid; D014759:Viral Envelope Proteins / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics*; D014779:Virus Replication
D000914:Antibodies, Viral; D011994:Recombinant Proteins; D014759:Viral Envelope Proteins