Nucleotide Sequence of the Telomeric Region of the African Swine Fever Virus Genome

The 4-kb terminal Bc/I fragment of African swine fever virus (ASFV) DNA, including the inverted terminal repetition (ITR), was cloned and sequenced. The sequence showed that the 2.1-kb ITR is composed of a 301-nucleotide-long unique sequence immediately adjacent to the terminal hairpin loop, a set of 38 tandem direct repeats of a 34-nucleotide degenerate sequence, another unique intervening sequence with no remarkable features, and a set of 5 tandem repeats of a 27-nucleotide unit unrelated in sequence to the 34-nucleotide repeat unit. Several short repeats were found scattered along the most distal unique sequence. The proximal half of the terminal fragment possesses one complete and one interrupted copy of genes belonging to multigene family 360.