Endotheliotropic elephant herpesvirus, the first betaherpesvirus with a thymidine kinase gene
Endotheliotropic elephant herpesvirus, the first betaherpesvirus with a thymidine kinase gene
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DOI：
10.1099/vir.0.81977-0
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发表时间：
2006-10-01
影响因子：
3.8
通讯作者：
Hentschke, Jochen
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Ehlers, Bernhard;Dural, Guezin;Hentschke, Jochen
嗜内皮性大象疱疹病毒（elephantid herpesvirus 1; ElHV-1）对非洲象（Loxodonta africana）无致病性，但在亚洲象（Elephas maximus）中引起致命的出血性疾病。这被认为是通过在两个物种都居住的地方，如动物园，从非洲大象传播而发生的。该病毒在北美和欧洲动物园造成了相当大的损失，从而严重阻碍了濒危亚洲象的繁殖。1998年在柏林动物园发现的一只雄性亚洲象的ElHV-1的超微结构和遗传特征已有报道。在此，呈现了ElHV-1基因组的部分表征。一个60 kbp的基因座，跨越34个开放阅读框架，进行了分析。发现大多数检测到的基因在疱疹病毒中是保守的，并且显示出与β疱疹病毒（特别是人类疱疹病毒6和人类疱疹病毒7）最相似的总体排列。最重要的是，除了与人巨细胞病毒UL 97基因同源的蛋白激酶基因之外，还发现了胸苷激酶（TK）基因，其通常在β疱疹病毒基因组中缺失。因此，ElHV-1是唯一已知的编码TK基因的β疱疹病毒。这种特性可能有助于ElHV-1的暴发性致病性，但也为开发有效的抗病毒治疗提供了关键的酶活性，目前可用的核苷类似物。
Endotheliotropic elephant herpesvirus (elephantid herpesvirus 1; ElHV-1) is apathogenic for African elephants (Loxodonta africana), but causes fatal haemorrhagic disease in Asian elephants (Elephas maximus). This is thought to occur through transmission from African elephants in places where both species are housed, such as zoological gardens. The virus has caused considerable losses in North American and European zoological gardens and thus severely impedes breeding of the endangered Asian elephant. Previously, the ultrastructural and genetic characterization of ElHV-1 from a male Asian elephant that died from the disease at the Berlin zoological gardens in 1998 have been reported. Here, a partial characterization of the ElHV-1 genome is presented. A 60 kbp locus, spanning 34 open reading frames, was analysed. Most of the detected genes were found to be conserved among the herpesviruses and showed an overall arrangement most similar to that of betaherpesviruses, in particular Human herpesvirus 6 and Human herpesvirus 7. Most importantly, in addition to a protein kinase gene that is homologous to the human cytomegalovirus UL97 gene, a thymidine kinase (TK) gene was found, which is generally missing in betaherpesvirus genomes. Thus, ElHV-1 is the only known betaherpesvirus to encode a TK gene. This peculiarity might contribute to the fulminant pathogenicity of ElHV-1, but also provide a crucial enzymic activity for developing an efficient antiviral therapy with currently available nucleoside analogues.