CHARACTERIZATION OF PROTEINS ENCODED BY THE SHORT UNIQUE REGION OF HERPESVIRUS OF TURKEYS BY IN-VITRO EXPRESSION

Nine open reading frames mapping in the short unique (U-s) region of t he genome of herpesvirus of turkeys (HVT) were expressed by in vitro t ranscription and translation. The observed M(r)s of US10, SORF3 and US 2 were as predicted from the sequence but there were discrepancies bet ween the observed and predicted M(r)s of US1, protein kinase, gI, go a nd gE. These could be accounted for in most cases by post-translationa l and co-translational processing. Analysis of the synthesized product s at different time points provided evidence for post-translational mo dification of HVT protein kinase. Translation in the presence of micro somal membranes resulted in co-translational processing of HVT gD, gI and gE by glycosylation and signal peptide cleavage.