Reevaluation of human cytomegalovirus coding potential

Eain Murphy, Isidore Rigoutsos, Tetsuo Shibuya, Thomas E. Shenk

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

156 Scopus citations

Abstract

The Bio-Dictionary-based Gene Finder was used to reassess the coding potential of the AD169 laboratory strain of human cytomegalovirus and sequences in the Toledo strain that are missing in the laboratory strain of the virus. The gene-finder algorithm assesses the potential of an ORF to encode a protein based on matches to a database of amino acid patterns derived from a large collection of proteins. The algorithm was used to score all human cytomegalovirus ORFs with the potential to encode polypeptides ≥50 aa in length. As a further test for functionality, the genomes of the chimpanzee, rhesus, and murine cytomegaloviruses were searched for orthologues of the predicted human cytomegalovirus ORFs. The analysis indicates that 37 previously annotated ORFs ought to be discarded, and at least nine previously unrecognized ORFs with relatively strong coding potential should be added. Thus, the human cytomegalovirus genome appears to contain ≈192 unique ORFs with the potential to encode a protein. Support for several of the predictions of our in silico analysis was obtained by sequencing several domains within a clinical isolate of human cytomegalovirus.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)13585-13590
Number of pages6
JournalProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
Volume100
Issue number23
DOIs
StatePublished - Nov 11 2003

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • General

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