Partial restriction map of Marek's disease virus DNA

A partial restriction map of Marek's disease virus (MDV) DNA was constructed by digestion with endonucleases BamHI, Bg/I and SmaI and by blotting hybridization. The data suggest that there is a terminal heterogeneous sequence at least on one end of the MDV DNA molecule. The data did not reveal four different orientations of the terminal fragments of MDV DNA molecules despite the observation that MDV DNA contains inverted repeat sequences as also present in Herpes simplex virus (HSV) DNA molecules (Cebrian et al., 1981). Terminal deletion of MDV DNA, SalI-H and I, was found in high passage number preparations.