UPDATE OF THE VIROID AND VIROID-LIKE SEQUENCE DATABASE - ADDITION OF A HEPATITIS-DELTA VIRUS-RNA SECTION

Recently, we developed and made available an online database that incl udes all the reported (to our knowledge) viroid and viroid-like RNA se quences [Bussire,F., Lafontaine,D. and Perreault,J.-P. (1996) Nucleic Acids Res. 24, 1793-1798], We report here an update of this catalogue which includes the addition of a new section devoted to human hepatiti s delta virus (vHDV) sequences, This new section comprises all availab le vHDV sequences, irrespective of their completeness, which have been either published or were available from nucleic acid libraries, Addit ional structural characteristics of the vHDV genome, such as the posit ions of the self-catalytic domains, the antigen open reading frames, e tc., are also included, The catalogue is available on the World Wide W eb (http://www.callisto.si.usherb.ca/similar to jpperra) in a user-fri endly form. It should provide an excellent reference point for further molecular studies of these small circular pathogenic RNAs.