Cloning and Sequence Analysis of the Chitinase Gene of Spodoptera litura Nuclear Polyhedrosis VirusHU Guo

Cloning and Sequence
Analysis of the Chitinase Gene of Spodoptera litura Nuclear
Polyhedrosis Virus

HU Guo-Dong, PANG Yi^*, YANG Kai, LI Chong-Bi, SU
De-Ming¹
( State Key Laboratory for Biocontrol and Institute of Entomology,Zhongshan
University, Guangzhou 510275, China；¹Virology Research Unit,Fudan
University,Shanghai 200433,
China )

Abstract    Using AcMNPV chiA-containing
fragment as a probe, the chitinase gene of Spodoptera litura nuclear
polyhedrosis virus (SpltNPV) was localized in two contiguous fragments, XbaI
5.1 kb and 2.1 kb, and the intact SpltNPV chiA gene was obtained by
cloning and sequencing those two fragments. The complete open reading frame of
the gene was 1 695 nucleotide long, encoding a putative protein of 564 amino acids
with molecular weight of 62.9 kD. Sequence analysis further revealed that the
5′noncoding region had a baculovirus late promoter motif TAAG. A
polyadenylation signal, AATAAA, was located dowmnstream of the translation stop
codon. A putative signal peptide was present at the N-terminus of the protein.
This gene shares 57% homology with AcMNPV chitinase gene.
Key words    Spodoptera litura；nuclear polyhedrosis virus；chitinase gene；sequence analysis

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