SEQUENCE-ANALYSIS OF THE TERMINAL PROTEIN-PRECURSOR CODING REGIONS FROM BOVINE ADENOVIRUS SEROTYPE-2 AND SEROTYPE-3

As part of our efforts to develop bovine adenoviruses into a vector sy stem, we sequenced the region predicted to encode the terminal protein precursor of either bovine adenoviruses type 2 and bovine adenoviruse s type 3. We examined the regions containing the terminal protein prec ursors and showed that the bovine adenovirus early region 2B had an id entical organization to all adenoviruses so far examined. The bovine a denovirus terminal protein precursors and those of other adenoviruses were also compared in a sequence alignment analysis and several highly conserved structural domains were identified. Finally, we showed how the various terminal protein precursors were related in a sequence pai r similarity analysis and concluded that the terminal protein precurso rs of bovine adenoviruses types 2 and 3 are significantly different fr om each other at the protein sequence level.