African swine fever virus encodes a serine protein kinase which is packaged into virions

Abstract

Nucleotide sequencing of the SalI j region of the virulent Malawi (LIL20/1) strain ofAfrican swine fever virus (ASFV) identified an open reading frame (ORF), designated j9L, with extensive similarity to the family of protein kinases. This ORF encodes a 35.1-kDa protein of 299 amino acids which shares 24.6% amino acid identity with the human pim-1 proto-oncogene and 21.0%6 identity with the vaccinia virus BlR-encoded protein kinase. The ASFV ORF contains the motifs characteristic of serine-threonine protein kinases, with the exception of the presumed ATP-binding site, which is poorly conserved. The ORF was expressed to high levels in Escherichia coli, and the recombinant enzyme phosphorylated a calf thymus histone protein on serine residues in vitro. An antibody raised to an amino-terminal peptide of the ASFV protein kinase was reactive with the recombinant protein in Western immunoblot analyses and was used to demonstrate the presence of the protein kinase in ASF virions.

Phylogenetic analysis of conserved genes within the ecdysteroid UDP-glucosyltransferase gene region of the slow-killing Adoxophyes orana granulovirus

“…This region differed from the consensus in AoGV. However, inconsistencies are shown in this region in PxGV and XcGV (Hayakawa et al ., 1999 ) and in protein kinases from other organisms (Russell & Nurse, 1987 ; Baylis et al ., 1993 ). The consensus motif X is absent in AoGV but is also poorly conserved in other baculovirus proteins.…”

Mutation in the UL97 open reading frame of human cytomegalovirus strains resistant to ganciclovir

“…There are two different DNA polymerase mutations found among these strains. The single UL97 mutation is significant in that it occurs within a region of the gene that contains conserved residues shared by a large number of cellular and viral protein kinases as well as a number of bacterial phosphotransferases (2,5,7,10,13,15,16,34). This corresponds to region VI defined by Hanks et al (13).…”

“…The vaccinia virus BlR product is a serine/threonine kinase and is found in the virion (18). African swine fever virus encodes a kinase which phosphorylates serine and also appears to be a virion protein (2).…”

Cloning, Characterization, and Phylogenetic Analysis of a Shrimp White Spot Syndrome Virus Gene That Encodes a Protein Kinase

“…Phosphorylation of numerous cellular and viral proteins is also observed in virally infected cells, which suggests that the protein kinases may have a role in regulating a wide variety of viral infections (Leader and Katan, 1988;Burma et al, 1994;Guarino et al, 1992;Kann et al, 1999). Protein phosphorylation in virally infected cells may depend on cellular protein kinases (Prives, 1990) or virally encoded protein kinases (for examples, see Smith and Smith, 1989;Wu et al, 1990;Zhang et al, 1990; Barik and Banerjee, 1992;Lin et al, 1992;Baylis et al, 1993;Bischoff and Slavicek, 1994;Reilly and Guarino, 1994;Li and Miller, 1995). These virally encoded protein kinases possess most, if not all, of the conserved motifs (subdomains I-IX as defined by Hanks et al, 1988) of the catalytic domains found in eukaryotic protein kinases.…”