Human coronavirus 229E encodes a single ORF4 protein between the spike and the envelope genes.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The genome of coronaviruses contains structural and non-structural genes, including several so-called accessory genes. All group 1b coronaviruses encode a single accessory protein between the spike and envelope genes, except for human coronavirus (HCoV) 229E. The prototype virus has a split gene, encoding the putative ORF4a and ORF4b proteins. To determine whether primary HCoV-229E isolates exhibit this unusual genome organization, we analyzed the ORF4a/b region of five current clinical isolates from The Netherlands and three early isolates collected at the Common Cold Unit (CCU) in Salisbury, UK.

Results

All Dutch isolates were identical in the ORF4a/b region at amino acid level. All CCU isolates are only 98% identical to the Dutch isolates at the nucleotide leve

SUBMITTER: Dijkman R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1774570 | biostudies-literature | 2006 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature