The immunogenic glycoprotein gp35-37 of human herpesvirus 8 is encoded by open reading frame K8.1

Human herpesvirus 8 (HHV-8) is likely to be involved in the pathogenesis of Kaposi's sarcoma (KS) and body cavity-based lymphomas (BCBLs). The HHV-8 genome is primarily in a latent state in BCBL-derived cell lines like BCBL-1, but lytic replication can be induced by phorbol esters (R. Renne, W. Zhang, B. Herndier, M. McGrath, N. Abbey, D. Kedes, and D. E. Ganem, Nat. Med. 2:342-346, 1996). A 35- to 37-kDa glycoprotein (gp35-37) is the polypeptide most frequently and intensively recognized by KS patient sera on Western blots with induced BCBL-1 cells. Its apparent molecular mass is reduced to 30 kDa by digestion with peptide-N-glycosidase F. By searching the known HHV-8 genomic sequence for open reading frames (ORF) with the potential to encode such a glycoprotein, an additional, HHV-8-specific reading frame was identified adjacently to ORF K8. This ORF, termed K8.1, was found to be transcribed primarily into a spliced mRNA encoding a glycoprotein of 228 amino acids. Recombinant K8.1 was regularly recognized by KS patient sera in Western blots, and immunoaffinity-purified antibodies to recombinant K8.1 reacted with gp35-37. This shows that the immunogenic gp35-37 is encoded by HHV-8 reading frame K8.1, which will be a useful tool for studies of HHV-8 epidemiology and pathogenesis.