THE UNIQUE REGION OF THE HUMAN HERPESVIRUS-6 GENOME IS ESSENTIALLY COLLINEAR WITH THE UL SEGMENT OF HUMAN CYTOMEGALOVIRUS

The entire genome of human herpesvirus 6 (HHV-6) strain U1102 was cloned as overlapping fragments in cosmid and plasmid vectors. Cleavage maps were constructed for the restriction endonucleases BamHI, EcoRI, NotI and SmaI. The genome of HHV-6 U1102 is a linear dsDNA of 163 kbp, consisting of a long unique 142 kbp region flanked by direct terminal repeats of 10.5 kbp. Short stretches (290 to 470 nucleotides) of DNA, four from the terminal repeats and 55 from the U(L) region, were sequenced and compared by computer with the known herpesvirus amino acid sequences. Homologies were found for 10 open reading frames that are scattered over the U(L) region of HHV-6. Their relative positions and orientations indicate that the unique region of HHV-6 is essentially collinear with the U(L) region of human cytomegalovirus (HCMV), but is not collinear with the other human herpesviruses. It confirms and extends earlier observations that HHV-6 is more closely related to the beta-herpesvirus HCMV, suggesting that HHV-6 may be considered as the prototype of a new beta-2-herpesvirus subgroup.