E. Beuken et al., CLONING AND SEQUENCE-ANALYSIS OF THE GENES ENCODING DNA-POLYMERASE, GLYCOPROTEIN-B, ICP18.5 AND MAJOR DNA-BINDING PROTEIN OF RAT CYTOMEGALOVIRUS, Journal of General Virology, 77, 1996, pp. 1559-1562
In all herpesviruses a block of genes is present which is composed of
the genes encoding DNA polymerase, glycoprotein B (gB), ICP18.5 and ma
jor DNA-binding protein (MDBP), Here we report the cloning and sequenc
ing of this gene block from rat cytomegalovirus (RCMV). The gene block
spans 13.3 kbp and contains the four genes in the order pol, gB, ICP1
8.5 and MDBP. A similar order of genes has previously been reported fo
r human and murine cytomegaloviruses. The pol, gB, ICP18.5 and MDBP ge
nes contain open reading frames which have the capacity to encode prot
eins of 1120, 984, 893 and 1281 amino acids, respectively. Comparison
of the predicted amino acid sequences of the four RCMV proteins with t
he corresponding proteins of other herpesviruses revealed a close rela
tionship between RCMV and other cytomegaloviruses, which corroborates
the usefulness of the RCMV-rat model for studying cytomegalovirus biol
ogy.