The Anticarsia gemmatalis nuclear polyhedrosis virus polyhedrin gene region: sequence analysis, gene product and structural comparisons.

The genomic region of the Anticarsia gemmatalis multiple nucleocapsid nuclear polyhedrosis virus (AgMNPV) strain 2D encoding the polyhedrin gene was cloned and mapped, and a 2085 bp SphI-PstI fragment containing the gene was sequenced. The polyhedrin polypeptide of the parental isolate AgMNPV was manually sequenced, and the amino acid sequence obtained agreed with that deduced from the DNA coding region sequence. AgMNPV and Orgyia pseudotsugata MNPV (OpMNPV) are similar in terms of promoter structure and polyhedrin primary sequence, and the polyhedrin gene of both viruses is transcribed in the anti-clockwise direction in relation to their physical maps. The region upstream from the polyhedrin gene of AgMNPV, OpMNPV, Bombyx mori NPV and Autographa californica MNPV (AcMNPV) was compared and this showed that the open reading frame (ORF) common to all four viruses (ORF 5) has sequence homology with the AcMNPV 25K gene. The sequences between ORF 5 and the polyhedrin gene were found to be variable among the polyhedrin gene loci compared. Additionally, conserved elements in the promoters of the very late genes encoding polyhedrin and granulin, and those encoding two p10 proteins were found to share sequence homology and positional similarity with consensus regions in the conserved boxes A and C, responsible for binding transcription factors to eukaryotic 5S ribosomal RNA genes, and to box C of tRNA genes.