Cloning of Thymidine Kinase Gene of Duck Plague Virus Using Degenerate PCR

摘要

The DNA of duck plague virus (DPV) thymidine kinase (TK) gene was cloned and sequenced from a vaccine virus in the study. Degenerate oligonucleotide primers for the consensus site of herpesvirus UL24, TK, and glycoprotein H(gH) gene were used in the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to amplify DNA product with 3 741-base-pairs (bp) in size. DNA sequence analysis revealed a 1 077-base-pairs (bp) open reading frame (ORF) encoding a 358 amino acid polypeptide homologous to herpesvirus TK proteins. The predicted TK protein shared 31.2, 41.3, 35.7, 37.4, and 28.4% identity with herpes simplex virus typel, equine herpesvirus type 4, Marek's disease virus 2, herpesvirus turkey, and infectious laryngotracheitis virus, respectively. Comparison of the amino acid sequences of other herpesvirus TK proteins showed that these proteins were not conserved on the whole, otherwise the portion of the TK proteins corresponding to the nucleotide binding domain and the nucleoside binding site were highly conserved among herpesvirus. Comparison with the amino acid sequences of the conserved nucleotide and nucleoside binding domains of other eleven herpesvirus TK proteins to the predicted DPV peptide confirmed its identity as the DPV TK protein.