A BROWN ALGAL VIRUS GENOME CONTAINS A RING ZINC-FINGER MOTIF

The brown filamentous alga Feldmannia sp. contains a large icosahedral dsDNA virus, FsV, of which there are multiple variants. A 4.5-kb SstI -HindIII fragment (SH4.5) that is conserved among all genome variants was sequenced. Three open reading frames (ORF-1, -2, and -3, containin g 555, 2022, and 411 bp, respectively) were shown to be transcriptiona lly active by ribonuclease protection assay. A ''RING'' zinc finger mo tif and a nucleotide binding site motif were identified in ORF-2. (C) 1996 Academic Press, Inc.