A SET OF AFRICAN SWINE FEVER VIRUS TANDEM REPEATS SHARES SIMILARITIESWITH SAR-LIKE SEQUENCES

A group of cross-hybridizing DNA segments contained within the EcoRI r estriction fragments U', X and J of a Vero cell-adapted strain (BA71V) of African swine fever virus (ASFV) were mapped and sequenced. Analys is of the nucleotide sequence revealed the presence of a set of long i nternal repeated sequences composed of five types of tandemly repeat u nits of about 200 bp. These tandem repeats contain a G-rich core of 10 -14 nucleotides surrounded by regions with a high A + T content distri buted in oligo(dA).oligo(dT) tracts. Next to the repeated sequences we detected two related open reading frames that are members of a new mu ltigene family (multigene family 300). Comparison of DNA sequences fro m several virus isolates indicated that this region undergoes frequent rearrangements leading to either duplications or deletions of the rep eat units. These ASFV repeated sequences share similarities with chrom osomal a satellite DNA, the scaffold-associated region and satellite I II of Drosophila. Similar tandemly repeated sequences have not been de scribed in other viruses.