The fusion protein gene of phocine distemper virus: nucleotide and deduced amino acid sequences and a comparison of morbillivirus fusion proteins.

The nucleotide sequence of the gene encoding the fusion protein of phocine distemper virus has been determined. The mRNA is 2206 nucleotides in length and contains one major open reading frame (ORF) of 1893 nucleotides encoding a potential protein of 631 amino acid residues. However, analogy with canine distemper virus (CDV) suggests that translation of the F protein starts at the sixth AUG codon in the mRNA sequence which is located at position 461, resulting in an F0 protein of exactly the same size (537 aa) as that of CDV. The overall homology at nucleotide level between the CDV and PDV F genes is 66%. The homology between the two F proteins of these respective viruses is 83%.