Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Tsai, Meng-Feng
• Yu, Hon-Tsen
• Tzeng, Huey-Fen
• Leu, Jiann-Horng
• Chou, Chih-Ming
• Huang, Chang-Jen
• Wang, Chung-Hsiung
• Lin, Jung-Yaw
• Kou, Guang-Hsiung
• Lo, Chu-Fang

Titel

Identification and Characterization of a Shrimp White Spot Syndrome Virus (WSSV) Gene That Encodes a Novel Chimeric Polypeptide of Cellular-Type Thymidine Kinase and Thymidylate Kinase

Ist Teil von

• Virology (New York, N.Y.), 2000-11, Vol.277 (1), p.100-110

Ort / Verlag

United States: Elsevier Inc

Erscheinungsjahr

2000

Quelle

Elsevier Journal Backfiles on ScienceDirect (DFG Nationallizenzen)

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• From previously constructed genomic libraries of a Taiwan WSSV isolate, a putative WSSV tk-tmk gene was identified. Uniquely, the open reading frame (ORF) of this gene was predicted to encode a novel chimeric protein of 388 amino acids with significant homology to two proteins: thymidine kinase (TK) and thymidylate kinase (TMK). Northern blot analysis with a WSSV tk-tmk-specific riboprobe detected a major transcript of 1.6 kb. When healthy adult Penaeus monodon shrimp were inoculated with WSSV, the tk-tmk gene transcript was first detected by RT-PCR analysis at 4 h postinfection and transcription levels continued to increase over the first 18 h. The gene's major in vitro transcription and translation product, equivalent to the predicted size (43 kDa), is a single chimeric protein that includes both the TK and TMK functional motifs. Evidence for phylogenetic analysis and sequence alignment suggested that the gene may have resulted from the fusion of a cellular-type TK gene and a cellular-type TMK gene. Its unique arrangement may also provide a valuable gene marker for WSSV.