The complete nucleotide sequence of the type 5 Helicoverpa armigera cytoplasmic polyhedrosis virus genome.

The S1-6, S8, and S9 segments of the type 5 Helicoverpa armigera cytoplasmic polyhedrosis virus (HaCPV-5, Chinese strain) were cloned and sequenced, completing the HaCPV-5 genome. We found that each HaCPV-5 segment exhibits the conserved terminal sequences AGUU and UUGC located at the 5' and 3' ends, respectively. We also analyzed the translation initiation codon of the HaCPV-5 genome and compared it with the available cypovirus sequences in GenBank. We postulated that the conserved purine at the -3 position in relation to the AUG codon is probably the most important nucleotide for efficient translation initiation in cypovirus. Although the nucleotide sequences of the HaCPV-5 segments S1-10 exhibit no significant similarity to other viruses, blast searches did reveal some similarities between predicted HaCPV-5 amino acid sequences and those of other viruses.