Hk. Jang et al., MAREKS-DISEASE VIRUS SEROTYPE-2 GLYCOPROTEIN-I GENE - NUCLEOTIDE-SEQUENCE AND EXPRESSION BY A RECOMBINANT BACULOVIRUS, Journal of veterinary medical science, 58(11), 1996, pp. 1057-1066
In the Marek's disease virus (MDV) serotype 2 (MDV2) genome, a gene eq
uivalent to the glycoprotein I (gI) of other alphaherpesviruses was id
entified and sequenced. The primary translation product comprises 355
amino acids with a M(r) of 38.4 kDa. The predicted amino acid sequence
possesses several characteristics typical of membrane glycoproteins,
including a N-terminal hydrophobic signal sequence, C-terminal transme
mbrane and cytoplasmic domains, and extra-cellular region containing t
hree potential N-linked glycosylation sites. Compared to other MDV ser
otypes, MDV2 gI showed 49% identity with MDV I gI, and 36% identity wi
th HVT gI at the amino acid level. In transcriptional analyses, a 3.5
kb mRNA which starts between 56 and 147 bps upstream of the potential
translational initiation codon of gI was identified as the gI-specific
transcript. By a recombinant baculovirus, this potential gI encoding
region was expressed as two specific products 45 and 43 kDa. Both prod
ucts were susceptible to tunicamycin treatment, indicating that they w
ere glycoprotein. Further, the expressed gI reacted with all chicken-a
ntisera raised to each of the three serotypes of MDV (strains GA, SE-1
, and FC126), suggesting that gI is expressed by all three serotypes o
f MDV in infected cells and conserves common antigenic epitope(s) beyo
nd serotypes.