Reevaluation of the coding potential and proteomic analysis of the BAC-derived rhesus cytomegalovirus strain 68-1.

ABSTRACT: Cytomegaloviruses are highly host restricted, resulting in cospeciation with their hosts. As a natural pathogen of rhesus macaques (RM), rhesus cytomegalovirus (RhCMV) has therefore emerged as a highly relevant experimental model for pathogenesis and vaccine development due to its close evolutionary relationship to human CMV (HCMV). Most in vivo experiments performed with RhCMV employed strain 68-1 cloned as a bacterial artificial chromosome (BAC). However, the complete genome sequence of the 68-1 BAC has not been determined. Furthermore, the gene content of the RhCMV genome is unknown, and previous open reading frame (ORF) predictions relied solely on uninterrupted ORFs with an arbitrary cutoff of 300 bp. To obtain a more precise picture of the actual proteins encoded by the most commonly

SUBMITTER: Malouli D 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3416160 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature