DNA sequence of the US component of the varicella-zoster virus genome.

Abstract

The linear duplex DNA molecule of varicella‐zoster virus is 120 000 bp in size and has the sequence arrangement UL‐IRS‐US‐TRS, where UL and US are unique sequences and IRS and TRS are inverted repeats flanking US. The primary structure of the cloned SstI g DNA fragment containing US (5232 bp) and adjacent portions of IRS and TRS (426 bp of each) was determined, and the following model for genetic expression was derived from an analysis of the sequence. The region specifies four mRNAs encoding primary translation products with mol. wts. of 11, 44, 39 and either 74 or 70 kd. The 39‐and 70‐kd proteins have primary structures characteristic of membrane proteins. The mRNAs encoding the 11‐ and 74/70‐kd proteins extend from opposite sides of US into IRS/TRS, thus sharing a common 3′ terminus. These proteins do not share a common carboxy terminus because the coding region for the 11‐kd protein terminates at the junction between US and IRS, whereas that for the 74/70‐kd protein extends into TRS. The analysis affirms the hypothesis that the extent of inverted repeats in herpesvirus genomes is primarily a result of constraints imposed by adjacent protein coding sequences.

Herpes Simplex and 'The Herpes Complex': Diverse Observations and A Unifying Hypothesis

“…HSV-1 ; Wagner, 1983 ;McGeoch, 1984: EBV;Baer et al, 1984) and low (e.g. VZV; Davison, 1983) mean ~ (G + C) content have confirmed earlier assumptions that they are primarily composed of protein-coding sequences and that differences in their compositions must be reflected in differences in their usage of synonymous codons. An explanation for the origin of these differences in composition and for the associations between biological properties and gross composition (Fig.…”

The Junctions between the Repetitive and the Short Unique Sequences of the Herpes Simplex Virus Genome Are Determined by the Polypeptide-coding Regions of Two Spliced Immediate-early mRNAs

“…10a); it is the incorporation of the second stop codon which is lethal. Significantly, varicella-zoster virus (VZV), the genome of which is very similar to that of HSV (Dumas et al, 1980(Dumas et al, , 1981Davison & Scott, 1983), has one open reading frame running into TRs, and another reading frame whose termination codon lies precisely at the IRs/Us junction (Davison, 1983). This organization conforms exactly to our hypothesis.…”

The Herpes Simplex Virus Type 1 US7 Gene Product Is a 66K Glycoprotein and Is a Target for Complement-dependent Virus Neutralization

“…Varicella-zoster virus gpI and pseudorabies virus gp63 also have structural homology with HSV-1 gI (Davison, 1983 ;Davison et al, 1985Petrovskis et al, 1986). These data suggest a conservation of function.…”