The herpes simplex virus type 2 strain HG52 RL1 gene contains a 154 bp intron as predicted from sequence analysis

The published sequence of the herpes simplex virus (HSV) type 2 strain HG52 neurovirulence gene RL1 indicated that, unlike the HSV-1 homologue, the gene contains a 154 bp intron. This intron contains six complete and one partial copy of a 19 bp repeat which encodes a stop codon; thus all three forward frames are blocked. By RT-PCR of poly(A)+ RNA, using primers on either side of the proposed intron, we have isolated a partial cDNA clone corresponding to the predicted spliced mRNA.