Rapid identification of cloned HSV2 DNA fragments

Randomly generated herpes simplex virus type 2 (HSV2) DNA fragments can be localized on the viral genome by digestion with SmaI and subsequent comparison of the resulting fragment patterns with a reference picture of SmaI-digested recombinant plasmids that contain inserts representing the entire HSV2 (strain 333) genome as adjacent fragments. The feasibility of the technique, which we call 'Sma fingerprinting' and which is much faster than fragment identification by blot hybridization, is demonstrated.