Murine herpesvirus 68 is genetically related to the gammaherpesviruses Epstein-Barr virus and herpesvirus saimiri

Division of Virology, Department of Pathology, University of Cambridge, Tennis Court Road, Cambridge CB2 1QP, U.K. Short nucleotide sequence analysis of seven restriction fragments of murine herpesvirus 68 (MHV-68) DNA has been undertaken and used to determine the overall genome organization and relatedness of this virus to other well characterized representatives of the alpha-, beta- and gammaherpesvirus subgroups. Nine genes have been identified which encode amino acid sequences with greater similarity to proteins of the gammaherpesvirus Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) than to the homologous products of the alphaherpesviruses varicella-zoster virus and herpes simples virus type 1 or the betaherpesvirus human cytomegalovirus. In addition, the genome organization of MHV-68 is shown to have an overall collinearity with that of the gamma-herpesviruses EBV and herpesvirus saimiri. In common with these viruses, dinucleotide frequency analysis of MHV-68 coding sequences reveals a marked reduction in CpG dinucleotide frequency thus implicating a dividing cell population as the site of latency in vivo . Received 5 December 1989; accepted 22 February 1990.