We have previously observed that the expression of two thymidylate biosynthesis enzymes, dihydrofolate reductase and thymidylate synthase (TS), is upregulated in quiescent human fibroblasts infected with human cytomegalovirus (HCMV). Here, we have demonstrated that HCMV increases expression of the cellular deoxycytidylate deaminase (dCMP deaminase), which provides the substrate for TS by converting dCMP to dUMP. We observed an increase in dCMP deaminase protein levels, whereas deoxyuridine triphosphatase (dUTPase), another cellular enzyme that may provide dUMP by hydrolysing dUTP, was undetectable. The essential requirement of cellular dCMP deaminase for productive HCMV replication was further emphasized by showing that a precursor of a potent dCMP deaminase inhibitor, zebularine, suppressed virus replication and DNA synthesis. These results suggest that HCMV exploits the host's dCMP deaminase activity to replicate in quiescent cells.Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) is a ubiquitous herpesvirus which generally causes asymptomatic infections in healthy individuals but may lead to severe diseases in immunologically immature or immunocompromised hosts (Mocarski & Courcelle, 2001;Landolfo et al., 2002). Its success as an opportunist largely depends on its ability to establish latent life-long infections, counteract host antiviral defence mechanisms and replicate in a wide variety of cells and tissues, including differentiated post-mitotic cells such as mesenchymal cells, endothelial cells, epithelial cells, smooth muscle cells and monocytes/macrophages (Hengel et al., 1998;Fortunato et al., 2000;Bissinger et al., 2002).Unlike other herpesviruses, HCMV does not encode specific dNTP biosynthetic enzymes, such as thymidine kinase (TK), dihydrofolate reductase (DHFR), thymidylate synthase (TS) or an active form of ribonucleotide reductase (Chee et al., 1990). It thus depends mainly on host cell metabolism for a sufficient concentration of dNTPs for the replication of its DNA. However, the biochemical pathways needed for such replication are expressed at very low levels in non-dividing cells. To explain this apparent paradox, it has been hypothesized that in these cells HCMV infection stimulates the relevant host dNTP-synthesizing enzymes. We have indeed demonstrated that this occurs for some of the enzymes involved in thymidylate biosynthesis, since infection of quiescent fibroblasts with both murine and human CMV increases cellular DHFR and TS content, and inhibition of these activities abrogates virus replication (Lembo et al., 1998(Lembo et al., , 1999Gribaudo et al., 2000Gribaudo et al., , 2002. TS catalyses the de novo biosynthesis of thymidylic acid (dTMP) by reductive transfer of the methylene group from 5,10-methylenetetrahydrofolate to the 5-position of the substrate, deoxyuridylic acid (dUMP), to form dTMP and dihydrofolate (Maley & Maley, 1990;Johnson, 1994). Therefore, the intracellular availability of dUMP may be the rate-limiting step in dTMP biosynthesis and hence critical for efficient CMV replication in quie...