• BMB Reports
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• v.35 no.6
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• pp.595-603
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• 2002

A gene that encodes a homologue to baculoviral ODVP-6E/ODV-E56, a baculoviral envelope-associated viral structural protein, has been identified and sequenced on the genome of Choristoneura fumiferana granulovirus (ChfuGV). The ChfuGV odvp-6e/odv-e56 gene was located on an 11-kb BamHI subgenomic fragment using different sets of degenerated primers, which were designed using the results of the protein sequencing of a major 39 kDa structural protein that is associated with the occlusion-derived virus (ODV). The gene has a 1062 nucleotide (nt) open-reading frame (ORF) that encodes a protein with 353 amino acids with a predicated molecular mass of 38.5 kDa. The amino acid sequence data that was derived from the nucleotide sequence in ChfuGV was compared to those of other baculoviruses. ChfuGV ODVP-6E/ODV-E56, along with othe baculoviral ODVP-6E/ODV-E56 proteins, all contained two putative transmembrane domains at their C-terminus. Several putative N-and O-glycosylation, N-myristoylation, and phosphorylation sites were detected in the ChfuGV ODVP-6E/ODV-E56 protein. A similar pattern was detected when a hydrophobicity-plots comparison was performed on ChfuGV ODVP-6E/ODV-E56 with other baculoviral homologue proteins. At the nucleotide level, a late promoter motif (GTAAG) was located at -14 nt upstream to the start codon of the GhfuGV odvp-6e/odv-e56 gene. a slight variant of the polyadenylation signal, AATAAT, was detected at the position +10 nt that is downstream from the termination signal. A phylogenetic tree for baculoviral ODVP-6E/ODV-E56 was constructed using a maximum parsimony analysis. The phylogenetic estimation demonstrated that ChfuGV ODVP-6E/ODV-E56 is most closely related to those of Cydia pomonella granulovirus (CpGV) and Plutella xylostella granulovirus (PxGV).