Cloning and characterization of a novel caprine genomic repetitive elementthat hybridizes with papillomavirus DNA

A goat genomic library was screened by Southern blot hybridization at reduc ed stringency with a bovine papillomavirus type 5 (BPV 5) DNA probe in orde r to identify potential cellular and viral sequences related to the papillo mavirus genome. A recombinant clone with an 8.5 kb genomic insert was found to contain a 1.3 kb Pstl subfragment (designated as P1-1) that hybridized with the DNA of BPV 5, two murine papillomaviruses and human papillomavirus types 5 and 8, but not with DNA from another eight human and bovine papill omavirus types. Southern blot hybridization of the goat P1-1 DNA probe was restricted to a single 1.0 kb subfragment within the El open reading frame (ORF) of BPV 5 but produced multiple bands ranging between 1.0 and 9.0 kb w hen hybridized under stringent conditions with Pstl-digested DNA obtained f rom different goat tissues. The genomic sequence of P1-1 has direct repeats of 10 and 13 nucleotides flanking 153 nucleotides, and 889 nucleotides of sequence, respectively, and an inverted repeat sequence of 11 nucleotides f lanking a major ORF potentially coding for 244 residues. Potential splice a cceptor and donor sites capable of joining with upstream and downstream exo ns are present within the major ORF. Sequence similarity between P1-1 and B PV 5 DNA at the nucleotide and amino acid level was limited to a stretch of 58 nucleotides which includes an oligopurine/pyrimidine tract. This region of similarity contains a predicted glutamic acid-rich domain. The P1-1 seq uence is a novel repetitive element within the goat genome that is unrelate d in sequence to papillomavirus DNA and to genomic sequences of mouse and m an.