Sequence and evolutionary relationships of African swine fever virus thymidine kinase

The thymidine kinase gene of African swine fever virus was mapped in a 1.4-kb EcoRl- PstI fragment located in the left half of the EcoRI K fragment of African swine fever virus DNA by using degenerate oligonucleotide probes derived from regions of the thymidine kinase sequence conserved in several poxviruses, man, mouse, and chicken. The nucleotide sequence of this region revealed an open reading frame of 196 codons, whose translated amino acid sequence showed significant similarity to the thymidine kinases of vaccinia virus, variola virus, monkeypox virus, shope fibroma virus, fowlpox virus, capripox virus, man, mouse, and chicken. The similarity scores obtained after comparison of known thymidine kinase sequences indicated that the African swine fever virus thymidine kinase is more distantly related than the poxvirus thymidine kinases to their cellular homologs. The evolutionary implications of these findings are discussed.