Premium
Polyprotein processing in African swine fever virus: a novel gene expression strategy for a DNA virus.
Author(s) -
SimónMateo C.,
Andrés G.,
Viñuela E.
Publication year - 1993
Publication title -
the embo journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 7.484
H-Index - 392
eISSN - 1460-2075
pISSN - 0261-4189
DOI - 10.1002/j.1460-2075.1993.tb05960.x
Subject(s) - biology , microbiology and biotechnology , physics
This report shows that African swine fever virus (ASFV)‐‐a large DNA‐containing virus‐‐synthesizes a polyprotein to produce several of its structural proteins. By immunoprecipitation analysis, we have found that ASFV polyprotein is a 220 kDa myristoylated polypeptide (pp220) which, after proteolytic processing, gives rise to four major structural proteins: p150, p37, p34 and p14. Processing of the ASFV polyprotein takes place at the consensus sequence Gly‐Gly‐X and occurs through an ordered cascade of proteolytic cleavages. So far, polyprotein processing as a mechanism of gene expression had been found only in positive‐strand RNA viruses and retroviruses. According to the results presented here, ASFV is the first example of a DNA virus that synthesizes a polyprotein as a strategy of gene expression.