Complete nucleotide sequence of the group-reactive antigen VP7 gene of bluetongue virus

The complete sequence of the group-specific antigen, VP7, of African horsesickness disease virus serotype 4 reveals a close relationship to bluetongue virus

“…2(a) for the message-sense cDNA sequence. Similar complementary sequences were identified from the previously published sequence data of the $7 species of BTV-10, BTV-13 and BTV-17 (Yu et al, 1988;Kowalik & Li, 1989;Kowalik et al, 1990; see Fig. 2b to d).…”

“…The Mr value of the dsRNA is calculated to be 7.0 x 105. The coding strand of the AHSV-4 $7 RNA has a calculated base composition of 27.5% U, 26.4% A, 19.7~ C and 26.5% G. It is therefore comparable to the base composition of the RNA segment $7 of BTV-10 (Yu et al, 1988). The $7 mRNA strand of AHSV-4 has a long 3' non-coding sequence, similar to that of the $7 RNA of BTV-10 (100 to 110 nucleotides).…”

“…AHSV-4 (Spanish isolate) was plaque-cloned using monolayers of BHK-21 ceils. The viral dsRNA was purified (Ritter & Roy, 1988) and the 10 individual RNA segments were separated and isolated as described previously (Purdy et al, 1984(Purdy et al, , 1985.…”

“…The single major open reading frame of the $7 RNA of AHSV is predicted to encode a polypeptide of 354 amino acids, five amino acids larger than the VP7 of BTV-10 (Yu et al, 1988). The Mr of VP7 is estimated to be 38 107, slightly smaller than the VP7 of BTV (38 545).…”

“…In addition, the 5'-and 3'-terminal regions of the $7 RNA segment of AHSV-4 have been analysed and their potential to form secondary structures are compared to the $7 structures of three BTV serotypes (Yu et al, 1988;Kowalik & Li, 1989;Kowalik et al, 1990).…”