The nucleotide sequence of the coding region of tobacco etch virus genomic RNA: evidence for the synthesis of a single polyprotein.

The complete nucleotide sequence of the tobacco etch virus (TEV) RNA genome has been determined excepting only the nucleotide(s) present at the extreme 5' terminus. The assembled TEV genomic sequence is 9496 nucleotides in length followed by a polyadenylated tract ranging from 20 to 140 residues. A computer search of the sequence reveals the following. A 5' untranslated region, rich in adenosine and uridine, is present between nucleotides 1 and 144. A putative initiation codon, at nucleotides 145-147, marks the beginning of a large open-reading frame (ORF) which ends with an opal (UGA) termination codon at positions 9307-9309. A 186-nucleotide untranslated region is present between the termination codon of the ORF and the beginning of the 3' polyadenylated region. The predicted translation product of this ORF is a 3054 amino acid polyprotein with a mol wt of 345,943. A function for the large (54,000 Mr) nuclear inclusion protein is suggested by a comparison of the deduced amino acid sequence with a protein data bank. This protein displays biochemical similarities to other viral RNA-dependent, RNA polymerases.