Enteroviruses are small RNA(+) viruses that encode one open reading frame flanked by two extensive noncoding regions carrying structural RNA regulatory elements that control replication and translation processes. For a long time the central, coding region was thought to remain single-stranded and its only function was supposed to be as the template for polyprotein synthesis. It turned out, howe...

We have used mapping of large T1 oligonucleotides to examine the genome of Rous-associated virus-O (RAV-O), an endogenous virus of chickens, and to compare it with that of Prague strain Rous sarcoma virus, subgroup B, (Pr-RSV-B), an exogenous sarcoma virus. To extend the sensitivity of such comparisons, we have developed a system of nucleic acid hybridization and hybridization-competition combi...

Heterogeneities in nucleotide content distribution along the length of Zaire ebolavirus and Marburg virus genomes have been analyzed. Results showed that there is asymmetric mutational A-pressure in the majority of Zaire ebolavirus genes; there is mutational AC-pressure in the coding region of the matrix protein VP40, probably, caused by its high expression at the end of the infection process; ...

In the late stages of an entomopoxvirus infection, virions become embedded within a crystalline occlusion body or spheroid. Spheroids are composed primarily of a single polypeptide, spheroidin. We describe the construction of a genetically modified Amsacta moorei entomopoxvirus (AmEPV) in which the spheroidin gene coding sequences are deleted and replaced with those of a heterologous reporter g...

Cottontail rabbit papillomavirus (CRPV) genomic sequences coding for virus early functions were introduced into a retroviral vector in order to produce cDNAs of the viral early region. Two constructs differing in the length of control sequences preceding the E6 open reading frame were transfected into Psi-2 cells and the released retroviral stock was used to infect NIH3T3 cells. The proviral se...

Torque teno virus (TTV) is a non-enveloped human DNA virus isolated by Nishizawa et al. in 1997.1 TTV, recently classified as the Alphatorquevirus genus within the Anelloviridae family by the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV), was the first human virus with a single-stranded circular DNA genome to be identified.2 Thus far, five main genetic groups (Groups 1–5) involving at l...

Coupled translation, first described in the M2 gene of pneumovirus respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), is an alternative mechanism of translational initiation in which the ribosomes which translate the first (M2-1) open reading frame (ORF) move a short distance upstream after termination and reinitiate translation from a second (M2-2) overlapping ORF. Here, we show that the same mechanism occurs...