Human cytomegalovirus UL144 open reading frame: sequence hypervariability in low-passage clinical isolates.

ABSTRACT: Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) infects a number of organs and cell types in vivo, leading to the hypothesis that HCMV disease and tissue tropism may be related to specific sequence variants. A potential component of HCMV variant strains is the UL144 open reading frame (ORF), which encodes a homologue of the herpesvirus entry mediator, HveA, a member of the tumor necrosis factor receptor superfamily. Sequence analysis of the UL144 ORF in 45 low-passage clinical isolates demonstrated significant strain-specific variability. In individual isolates, nucleotide substitutions occur at up to 21% of the 531 positions, resulting in approximately the same percentage of substitutions in the predicted 176-amino-acid sequence. Phylogenetic analysis indicated that the nucleotide and amino acid sequences d

SUBMITTER: Lurain NS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC113055 | biostudies-literature | 1999 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature