Mutation hot spots in the canine herpesvirus thymidine kinase gene

The guanine and cytosine content (GC-content) of alpha-herpesvirus genes are highly variable despite similar genome structures. It is known that drug resistant HSV, which has the genome with a high GC-content (approximately 70%), commonly includes frameshift mutations in homopolymer stretches of guanine (G) and cytosine (C) within the thymidine kinase (TK) gene. However, whether such mutation hotspots exist in the TK gene of canine herpesvirus (CHV) which has a low GC-content was unknown. In this study, we investigated mutations in the TK gene of CHV. CHV was passaged in the presence of iodo-deoxyuridine (IDU), and IDU-resistant clones were isolated. In all IDU-resistant virus clones, mutations in the TK gene were observed. The majority of these mutations were frameshift mutations of an adenine (A) insertion or deletion within either of 2 stretches of eight A's in the TK gene. It was demonstrated that CHV TK mutations frequently occur at a limited number of hot spots within long homopolymer nucleotide stretches.