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A Restriction Enzyme Based Cloning Method to Assess the In vitro Replication Capacity of HIV-1 Subtype C Gag-MJ4 Chimeric Viruses
Published on: August 31, 2014
A novel homologue of Human herpesvirus 6 in chimpanzees
Vincent Lacoste1, Ernst J Verschoor2, Eric Nerrienet3
1Unité d'Epidémiologie et Physiopathologie des Virus Oncogènes, Département EEMI, Bâtiment Lwoff, Institut Pasteur, 28 rue du Dr Roux, 75724 Paris cedex 15, France.
Abstract:
Among the Betaherpesvirinae, human cytomegalovirus is the only virus to possess simian homologues. Indeed, intriguingly, no close simian homologue of the roseoloviruses Human herpesvirus 6 (HHV-6) and Human herpesvirus 7 (HHV-7), the other two human members of the Betaherpesvirinae, has been identified to date. Here, the first simian homologue of HHV-6 is described, which was identified in common chimpanzees and designated PanHV6. By using a degenerate consensus PCR method, three different gene fragments were amplified, corresponding to the DNA polymerase (U38), beta-chemokine receptor (U12) and viral transactivator (U42) genes, with 94-96 % (nucleotide) and 95-97 % (amino acid) sequence identity to the corresponding genes of HHV-6B. Analysis of 77 predominantly wild-caught chimpanzees identified a unique PanHV6 strain in 21 animals, with no viral sequence variation between the different chimpanzee subspecies that were found to be infected. Characterization of this virus represents a great potential to gain a better understanding of the diseases associated with HHV-6.
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