SEQUENCE AND EXPRESSION OF A BACULOVIRUS PROTEIN WITH ANTIGENIC SIMILARITY TO TELOKIN

A protein from baculovirus-infected cells reacted with an antibody aga inst the smooth muscle protein telokin. Because of this unusual simila rity, the protein, termed telokin-like protein-20 (TLP20), was isolate d and characterized. its M(r) on denaturing polyacrylamide gels was 28 K and the protein contained a high proportion of beta structure. A cDN A for TLP20 was isolated and sequenced. The 3' non-coding sequence con tained a region of high identity with the 5' end of two other baculovi rus genes. The 5' non-coding region contains several baculovirus regul atory elements. Surprisingly, the derived amino acid sequence showed n o homologies to telokin. The cDNA was cloned into a bacterial expressi on vector and the subsequently expressed protein had a slightly lower M(r) than the native protein, but cross-reacted with telokin antibody. This paper reports the characterization of a new baculovirus protein that shares some antigenic similarities to the smooth muscle protein t elokin.