MOLECULAR-CLONING AND SEQUENCE DETERMINATION OF THE COMPLETE GENOME OF THE VIRULENT ECHOVIRUS-9 STRAIN BARTY

As part of a study of the molecular basis of pathogenicity of echoviru s 9, the complete nucleotide sequence of the mouse-virulent echovirus 9 strain Barty was determined. Excluding the poly(A) tail, the complet e RNA genome is composed of 7451 bases. The postulated open reading fr ame extends from nucleotide (nt) 741 to 7349 and predicts a polyprotei n of 2203 amino acids (aa). As compared with the sequence of the echov irus 9 prototype strain Hill, which is apathogenic for newborn mice, 1 492 nt are exchanged, leading to 9% divergence of the deduced amino ac id sequence. The foremost difference between both strains is located a t the C-terminus of the capsid protein VP1. In the case of strain Bart y, an additional 10 aa fragment, including an RGD motif, is inserted.