Conservation of gene organization in the lymphotropic herpesviruses herpesvirus Saimiri and Epstein-Barr virus.

By analyses of short DNA sequences, we have deduced the overall arrangement of genes in the (A + T)-rich coding sequences of herpesvirus saimiri (HVS) relative to the arrangements of homologous genes in the (G + C)-rich coding sequences of the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) genome and the (A + T)-rich sequences of the varicella-zoster virus (VZV) genome. Fragments of HVS DNA from 13 separate sites within the 111 kilobase pairs of the light DNA coding sequences of the genome were subcloned into M13 vectors, and sequences of up to 350 bases were determined from each of these sites. Amino acid sequences predicted for fragments of open reading frames defined by these sequences were compared with a library of the protein sequences of major open reading frames predicted from the complete DNA sequences of VZV and EBV. Of the 13 short amino acid sequences obtained from HVS, only 3 were recognizably homologous to proteins encoded by VZV, but all 13 HVS sequences were unambiguously homologous to gene products encoded by EBV. The HVS reading frames identified by this method included homologs of the major capsid polypeptides, glycoprotein H, the major nonstructural DNA-binding protein, thymidine kinase, and the homolog of the regulatory gene product of the BMLF1 reading frame of EBV. Locally as well as globally, the order and relative orientation of these genes resembled that of their homologs on the EBV genome. Despite the major differences in their nucleotide compositions and in the nature and arrangements of reiterated DNA sequences, the genomes of the lymphotropic herpesviruses HVS and EBV encode closely related proteins, and they share a common organization of these coding sequences which differs from that of the neurotropic herpesviruses, VZV and herpes simplex virus.