IDENTIFICATION AND NUCLEOTIDE-SEQUENCE OF A GENE IN FELINE HERPESVIRUS TYPE-1 HOMOLOGOUS TO THE HERPES-SIMPLEX VIRUS GENE ENCODING THE GLYCOPROTEIN-B

The nucleotide sequence of the glycoprotein B (gB) homologous gene of feline herpesvirus type 1 (FHV-1) was determined. The gene was found to be located within a 9.6 kbp SalI fragment by Southern-blot hybridization with a probe derived from the herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) gB DNA sequence. Furthermore, the predominant portion of the coding sequences was mapped to a 1.9 kbp Hin cII-Eco RI and its flanking 2.7 kbp Eco RI-Eco RI subfragments in the 9.6 kbp Sal I fragment. The entire nucleotide sequence revealed that the FHV-I gB homologous gene is capable of encoding a polypeptide of 948 amino acids. The predicted precursor polypeptide derived from this open reading frame could have a calculated M(r) Of 106 kDa in unglycosylated form and contains ten potential N-linked glycosylation sites and a probable internal proteolytic cleavage site. By Northern-blot analysis using portions of the open reading frame as a probe, 3.9 and 3.3 kb RNA transcripts were identified in FHV-1 infected cells. The alignment of the amino acid sequence of the FHV-1 gB homologue with those of 14 other herpesviruses revealed that 10 cysteine residues were completely conserved. Meanwhile, when evolutionary trees were generated among these herpesvirus gB counterparts, the FHV-1 gB homologous nucleotide sequence seems to be closely related to equine herpesvirus type 4 and its amino acid sequence to pseudorabies virus.